As Assistant D.A., Camilo Diaz is in line to take over as Atlanta's next District Attorney, but he will put his career, his family, and maybe even his own life on the line when he agrees to bring a robot to trial for murder. The evidence is clear that the robot, now known as Joseph, killed its owner; Eric will have to build a case to prove that it understood its actions.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Eric James supervises the machines that build the computer chips inside the Complex AI robots like the one on trial. The monotony of his life is thrown off balance when a service bot from his own factory tells him it likes his sunnies. Robots aren't supposed to like anything. To Eric, this robot's expression of emotion and curiosity may be the ticket to making humanity see that sentient AI may be the next threat in displacing humans even further.
Both Camilo and Eric are drawn into a world where they can shape the evolution of artificial intelligence. Their actions, however, may pull that future in opposite directions.