In a world where the smart benches have never been more comfortable and the lampposts more annoying, a barista and his friends take on the system.
The year is 2043, Earth. Our planet is still mostly intact and orbiting the same mediocre star, in the Age of Enhancement.
Modern society isn’t collapsing with dramatic flair or revolutionary upheaval. That would be far more interesting. Instead, it’s committing a slow personality suicide.
The world is run by an artificial superintelligence. For practical reasons. It’s all very convenient – until it isn’t.
Jasper Marlowe, the last barista in Norwich, would rather continue being a barista, but that’s no longer possible. He got the job of AI Agent Coordinator, but was then made redundant by the AI agents he was supposedly coordinating. Jasper’s quiet rebellion against the System’s perfect predictability might have gone unnoticed – if not for a curious retired teacher named Meredith, a data analyst called Mali, and a hybrid goat named Geoffrey with more opinions than most philosophers.
What begins as a small act of defiance becomes a quiet, collective awakening that asks the ultimate question:
Written with heart and humour, The Last Barista of Norwich is a thought-provoking, witty, and deeply human satire about friendship, free will, and what remains uniquely human.
CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS
The novel wrestles with profound questions about our future
THE FUTURE OF WORK
THE FUTURE OF WORK
THE NATURE OF HUMANITY
THE NATURE OF HUMANITY
CONTROL AND CONSCIOUSNESS
CONTROL AND CONSCIOUSNESS
THE CORE QUESTION
THE CORE QUESTION
Listen to an audio summary created by NotebookLM
NORWICH WALKING TOUR IN PHOTOS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Over the last three years, Emanuela Giangregorio has helped her clients bridge the skills gap in human-AI collaboration. She is well known for her publication of the AI Project Governance Framework: A Guide for Ethical, Efficient and Effective Human-AI Collaboration.
Having published several non-fiction books, Emanuela embarked on her debut novel, The Last Barista of Norwich. She viewed the writing process as a form of personal therapy – an attempt to make sense of the overwhelming confluence of AI, quantum physics and the accelerating pace of things to come. While she admits she’s still grappling with understanding these transformative forces, she accepts them as both exciting and deeply unsettling.
If you’re wondering… why Norwich? Emanuela came upon Norwich during a sailing trip on the Norfolk Broads in 2014. She was struck by the city’s quiet significance – a place that has endured for over a thousand years, weathering everything history could throw at it. She appreciates Norwich as a city that knows itself, that doesn’t need to shout about its importance, despite having two cathedrals and several substantial churches. Norwich Cathedral exemplifies quiet significance perfectly: magnificent without being ostentatious, commanding respect through substance rather than spectacle – like the people she most respects.
Emanuela currently lives in a seaside village in Sussex. She remains actively curious about what tomorrow’s version of reality will bring.
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