“Alice and Louise and the New Democracy” by Ron Kreymborg

Alice and Louise and the New Democracy

Ron Kreymborg
IngramSpark (2026)
ISBN: 978-1764401203
Reviewed by S. Mazher Rizvi for Reader Views (08/2026)

Alice and Louise and the New Democracy: A Tale of Two Androids by Ron Kreymborg is not just a science fiction story about Androids created by humans to run the political affairs of a country. It is a result of humans, aware of their imperfections, presumably creating a superior intelligence designed to resist human impulses such as bribery, nepotism, and jealousy. It is true that humans are aware of their imperfections and continually try to construct systems to compensate for them. One begins to wonder, however, whether those are the only human weaknesses that prevent progressive and ethical governance.

Definitely not. The greatest barrier to a perfect utopian form of society and government lies not in our inability to understand the essential needs of a perfect society, but in our inability to master, control, and direct the emotions that control our behavior. Compassion, love, fear, anger, guilt, and hope are emotions that help us understand suffering, attachments, danger, injustice, wrongdoings, and the pursuit of an uncertain future.

Author Ron Kreymborg has developed androids with all of the attributes, including libido, which may sound superfluous, but nevertheless contributes to rational decision-making. Sexual desire can change what we pay attention to, how we evaluate risks and rewards, and how strongly we pursue immediate gratification. Kreymborg has, in fact, created Androids that have empathy, compassion, loyalty, patience, and concern, and even with a libido, they are free from greed, hatred, and jealousy.

As the story unfolds, the reader witnesses amazing feats of skill and intelligence as a pair of female androids not only redesign organizations but also develop and create a perfect democratic government.

The book ends with an unexpected outcome, leaving the reader to ponder some unanswered questions. Can androids actually redesign and run governments better than humans? Can androids be programmed to manage governments by removing human emotions? Once AI takes over governments, will corruption of government shift from corrupt politicians & bureaucrats to whoever controls the machine’s objectives? Can we design a form of intelligence that retains the beneficial functions of human motivation without inheriting the evolutionary baggage that produced some of our worst behavior? Last but not least, can we, as creators of androids, succumb to the androids and bow down to them in acceptance of their supremacy?

Alice and Louise and the New Democracy take you through a journey of not just robotics development, but also a looking glass where you see human values, emotions, and feelings programmed as numbers and algorithms in robots. You get to see them controlled and practiced by machines created by humans.

Kreymborg has narrated the story in an Australian setting, but we can now see and visualize the reality across the globe. I would recommend this book to adults interested not only in Science Fiction but also in understanding the evolution and constructive use of human values and emotions by man-made machines.