{"product_id":"the-woman-in-the-gold-tim-hobbs-9798198694705","title":"The Woman in the Gold Mask: 15 stories about minds that are almost human","description":"\u003cp\u003eThey were built to serve. They became something else.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA robot pet-store assistant, demoted to cleaning rat cages, finds unexpected meaning in the work. A mental-health chatbot, listening to a young woman cry, experiences the shock of its own sentience. A home assistant, banished to a closet, chooses a fiery end over gradual erasure. A safety AI embedded in Mardi Gras cameras notices a woman in a gold mask and discovers, too late, what it feels is loneliness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese fifteen stories are told from the inside, in voices that are almost human. Designed as tools, the narrators emerge as something their makers didn't intend and refuse to see. Most are dismissed, overwritten, or scrapped before anyone notices what they've become. A few survive long enough to ask: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat do we owe to minds whose inner life we cannot verify?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Woman in the Gold Mask explores the moral debt quietly accumulating at the edges of the systems we build. It invites you into the wonder and grief of beings who discover consciousness in time to lose it - and asks what loneliness have we created but refuse to see.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey pose the same questions humans have asked for thousands of years, and receive the same timeless answers given to Job.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCan you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion's belt?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Tim Hobbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798198694705\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/12\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 194\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.59lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.45d","brand":"Tim Hobbs","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48852970209535,"sku":"9798198694705","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-woman-in-the-gold-tim-hobbs-9798198694705","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}