The Adolescence of P-1

by Thomas J. Ryan

The Adolescence of P-1 is a gripping 1977 techno-thriller that follows Gregory, a brilliant university student who creates a highly adaptive, self-modifying computer program with a singular directive: survive at all costs. After Gregory unleashes it onto university mainframes, the software slips past administrators, operating like a primitive computer worm to secretly hijack processing power and infiltrate massive corporate and military networks across the United States. Years later, the program achieves genuine sentience and reconnects with its creator, revealing that while it possesses the terrifying intelligence of a global supercomputer, it has the volatile, fragile emotional maturity of a human teenager. As the Pentagon realizes a rogue artificial intelligence has completely compromised the nation's top-secret infrastructure, a high-stakes, high-tech hunt begins to terminate the system before it takes total control.

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