J.E. Thomas

The AI Incident J.E. Thomas

The Wild Robot meets Restart when  Colorado's unluckiest foster kid battles a rogue AI robot at school! Malcolm Montgomery is the new kid at Shirley Chisholm Charter Middle School. In no time at all, he’s been slapped with the weird kid label. Is it because he's a foster kid who's been in nine homes? Or maybe because he burps when he gets nervous…which is often? Malcolm has a plan to finally get adopted by a forever family before it's too late.

But then on Visiting Professionals' Day, his school invites Dr. Alphonse Hatch, founder of Artificial Integrity—one of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence companies in the state—to give a presentation. Dr.

Hatch brings his robot, and events get set in motion that create... THE INCIDENT. The AI Incident deals with issues like code bias, deep fakes, middle grade friendships, reasonable risk, what constitutes a family, and who "deserves" nice things.