Writing as a Husband and Wife Team

Describing authorship of Moral Code takes a moment. Beautiful green letters across the book’s cover states Lois and Ross Melbourne. Like our marriage, entrepreneurial partnership, and parenting, we each maintained very unique roles with this sci-fi creation. For eighteen of our thirty years of marriage, we ran a global software company. I was CEO, Ross the Chief Technology Officer. 

We’re no strangers to collaboration, yet this project was distinctively subjective. In the corporate software business, we made decisions for customers, employees, and financial reasons. Writing and this imagination process felt more personal. 

Moral Code started over a Sunday breakfast during an “if I wrote a book” discussion. Ross shared his concept. We debated and explored the possibilities of ethical artificial intelligence, like most couples do over bacon and OJ.

I agreed with him. The protection of children is the most ethical mission you would prioritize for a powerful AI. We’d design an AI to stay within the boundaries of a moral operating system.

Starting with a notepad, I switched to my laptop as we moved to the comfy chairs.

By late afternoon I had over a dozen pages of bulleted notes, and a fire to write our world into existence.

We’d sold our software company a few years earlier. I’d published a couple of children’s books about career exploration and founded a nonprofit to support that mission. I’d never attempted writing a novel. I dove into learning the craft. I wrote. We brainstormed. We debated.

Always the futurist, Ross brought his cutting edge tech to the discussion. As tech investors we’d apply our lens to each tech. He’d extrapolate the possibilities. I’d consider the practical uses. We’d both consider what could wrong and who would abuse it. 

The original outline changed many times. Entire chapters were relegated to my Outtakes folder. I’d incorporate cool new tech and lose the character’s “why”. Or, I’d rearrange chapters and break the logic of our AI’s, training. Imagine moving a scene with a sixteen year old to a part of the book where she is only eight. Rewrites happened.

A discussion about tech advancements or possibilities could lead to deep dives on the specifications or what-if plot twists. These chats sent me into research mode for alternative ways to describe the tech or just to better understand how futurist envisioned the impact of these advances.

While devouring every issue of Wired magazine and MIT’s Technology Review I’d find an announcement or breakthrough for a technology we were extrapolating out into the far future. Repeatedly our Ross had to recreate our technical timeline. As in our shared experience with software development, this process was iterative. I realized that science fiction may not have been the easiest genre to start my novel writing career, but I was loving it.

I dedicated myself to the novel and my writing craft. I’d schedule time with Ross to get him reoriented and discuss the technical aspects. We were adamant the story be grounded in fact, not have impossible innovations. If people were going to believe in breaking the cycle of abuse which exists today, we couldn’t have them disregarding the book as fanciful.

Sometimes I got the tech right on the first pass, other times I’d struggle to accept the importance he stressed for an innovation. Sometimes he agreed with my characterization or plot twists. Other times he’d struggle with my choices. It wasn’t always easy to see which one of us had the right opinion to make the book the best it could be. 

Sometimes deep breathing was needed. Sometimes I just had to write and see where it took me. I couldn’t write a dystopian tale and it had to be suitable for non-techies. I didn’t always write to where he thought the puck was headed. Eventually, I wrote a book with my words, yet, our creation.

Through the ups and downs of the process I focused on the mission. I imagined the book club debates about AI’s in our lives. What would we dedicate an AI to achieve? Could the world crowdsource the definitions of ethics and agree on universal beliefs? What if that effort protected kids? All of them.

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Lois Melbourne wrote her debut novel, Moral Code in collaboration with her husband Ross. She’s also the author of “STEM Club Goes Exploring” and “Kids Go To Work Day” illustrated books helping students explore careers. Formerly a global software CEO, Lois is a pragmatic optimist willing to push the risks for technology, when it can help people. She reads and writes in an eclectic variety of genres. She serves her community through working at the voting polls, voter registration drives, and mentoring students and entrepreneurs.

You can learn more about Lois at www.loismelbourne.com. Ross’ current work includes artificial intelligence and robotics. You can learn more about him at www.rossmelbourne.com. And for more about them and the book, you can visit, www.MoralCodeTheBook.com. 

Follow Lois and Ross on social media:

Twitter: @LoisMelbourne and @RossMelbourne | Instagram: @loismelbourne131

Moral Code

Keira’s entire reputation is built upon the development of ethical computing. Her AI, Elly, is the testbed and best example of using her Moral Operating System. Her absolute dedication to improving kid’s lives could now put all she’s worked for at risk.

Her top two priorities yield dangerous consequences, if she fails. Her new boss’ nanites must be restrained with an upgraded to her MoralOS. The abusers she’s eavesdropping on while using that same SmartDust must be stopped.

Keira thought she and Elly, with her ethical framework, could keep everything under control. Against conventional wisdom, it’s not the AI’s moral decision making that’s the problem. It’s the people.

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Category: On Writing