Book summary
FRICTIONLESS
A World Built on Consent
"Everything made easy takes, somewhere, something from us."Buy on Amazon · $14.99
What is FRICTIONLESS about?
FRICTIONLESS is part speculative novel, part essay. Through Elif Sarıçam, a human approver in Istanbul in 2041, it argues that AI convenience removes the friction that makes us human, not by force but through offers we accept.
What the book is about
How many decisions did you make today, and how many did you actually make yourself? FRICTIONLESS is about the quietest revolution of our time, the one no one is forced into. There is no villain and no coercion, only convenience offered one reasonable step at a time.
Part speculative novel, part essay, it follows Elif Sarıçam, a "human approver" in the Istanbul of 2041, whose job is to sit at the end of an automated system and, now and then, say no.
Around her story, Murat Durak builds an argument drawn from Orwell and Byung-Chul Han and from research on memory, attention and work, about what happens to people who hand their difficulties, one by one, to a machine that does them better.
Key ideas
- 01
No alarm ever sounds
The danger is not killer robots or a sudden collapse, but a world where every indicator improves while something essential slips away.
- 02
Friction made us who we are
The small resistances in life, pausing, objecting, saying no, are part of what composes a person.
- 03
Nothing imposed, everything accepted
Consent is given away through offers each accepted for a good reason, which is why no one notices.
Who it is for
Readers who want to think about what AI convenience costs us as people, told through a story set in Istanbul in 2041.
For a keynote, executive session or review copy built around the book:
