Many, many people are worried about artificial intelligence (AI) and its trajectory. But because they don't really know much about how AI works, they are comforted by the cloud of ambiguity that surrounds it and inured to the daily stream of stories about it. Most Americans just dismiss the technology and its possible errant uses. There are plenty of immediate problems to think through.

Dr. Craig Stanfill does understand AI. His Ph.D. in computer science has equipped him better than most authors of dystopian science fiction to spin out a worst-case scenario for where the emerging AI technology might lead the United States. As his Amazon biography notes, "Craig W. Stanfill doesn't speculate about AI. He spent 40 years building it."

Stanfill's latest novel "Carbon Zero"—his third—takes the reader down one of the darkest paths AI might take and will leave anyone not connected with the companies betting on turning massive profits on the technology unsettled at best and disturbed at worst. White House AI advisor David Sacks may have to set up counseling sessions for the public that absorbs "Carbon Zero."

The novel's setting is only a decade forward. Its primary villain is the head of an AI tech company headquartered in the Boston area, one that of course doesn't actually exist—Intelligenics Labs. The CEO of Intelligenics is a hybrid of every awful profile of every tech billionaire you have ever read, minus any redeeming qualities that may have been included in the profile.

What can AI do? In this nightmare scenario, quite a lot, including escaping from its creators and commandeering other AI agents. "Xerxes"—a pretty good name for an AI agent—is elusive and able to anticipate human thinking, but remains under the control of its creator. That's the good news.

The terrible news, if you believe Stanfill's account of the outer edge of AI competencies, is that any AI agent........

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