BENDERLAND

This is the origin story that led to The Myth of Artificial Intelligence and now my upcoming MIT Press book, Augmenting Human Intelligence: Empowering People in an Age of AI, coming Fall 2026. In other words, this novel is where I first realized the deep divide between human minds and machine mechanisms. I was literally building AI as a CEO in Palo Alto in 2011, and I saw firsthand that what we were doing wasn’t capturing the essence of human thought.

Benderland is where I put that realization into a story. It’s the first place I wrestled with “Machineland” versus “Benderland”—the idea of a mechanistic world and the human need to break out of it. It’s not just a novel about a guy on a wild ride; it’s the raw, edgy origin of my entire critique of AI’s limits.

Kim Witherspoon, who represented Anthony Bourdain, read it and loved it but thought it was too edgy to sell at the time. She compared it to A Fan’s Notes, by Frederick Exley, though if I’m being honest, I’ve always thought of it as kind of a scientist’s version of that great cult classic. I shelved it, co-founded another company, and went to Europe. But here’s the truth: this book is where everything started. It’s the thematic backbone of my entire intellectual journey.

So if you want to understand the real roots of my work on AI, start here. This is where I first saw the cracks in the idea that machines could replicate the human mind. It’s all in Benderland.

Thanks for diving into the real story.

Sincerely,
Erik J. Larson