Rei Toei
Encyclopedia
Rei Toei is a fictional character
in the Bridge trilogy
of speculative fiction
novels by William Gibson
. Rei is introduced as the titular character in Gibson's 1995 novel Idoru
, as an artificial intelligence
, an embodied agent simulating a human female idol singer
. A personality construct which adapts and learns from her interaction with humans, she irresistibly attracts data analyst protagonist Colin Laney.
film and music company is a well known studio in Japan, with a well-deserved international reputation. William Gibson imagined that by the time of his Bridge Trilogy, Japanese companies with a determined research direction would be producing products much like Rei Toei, given suitable funding through customer demand.
Rei Toei is a database
composite from the wireless broadband internet of Japan, and the world. She has been programmed to remind viewers of their favourite J-pop
idols, which in Japanese
are known as (sounding like the English Idol). Her singing voice and performance styles are composites as well, giving her the ability to encompass the viewer's preference as well. In this way, her AI agent form is very similar to user accounts on a group-sharing Mainframe Computer
.
Implicit in her design is that she is not one Idoru, but many. Individual viewers and fans will have a personalised Rei Toei album, video, and collection of images, as 'she' can be and is customised according to the tastes of viewers. Within the titular novel, it is implied that over-zealous fans have purposes that are threatening her and her parent company's reputations. The incipient scandal that might develop should Rei be successfully hacked and/or dbase-polluted are the reasons for the hiring of Colin Laney by Toei Ltd.
Colin Laney is introduced as a quantitative data analyst. With experience in viewing databases and interpreting multiple interactions, he is conditioned through training and exposure to being able to analyze both data flow and potential errors in database queries, insertion of hacking routines, and other anomalies. His first interpretation of Rei is instructive, both in terms of himself and the Idoru's AI:
"She shimmered, and Laney could detect just immediately below the threshold of consciousness a flow of data...."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the Bridge trilogy
Bridge trilogy
The Bridge trilogy is a series of novels by William Gibson, his second after the successful Sprawl trilogy. The trilogy comprises the novels Virtual Light , Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties .-Setting:...
of speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
novels by William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
. Rei is introduced as the titular character in Gibson's 1995 novel Idoru
Idoru
Idoru is the second book in William Gibson's Bridge trilogy. Idoru is a science-fiction novel set in a postmodern, dystopian, cyberpunk future...
, as an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, an embodied agent simulating a human female idol singer
Japanese idol
In Japanese culture, are media personalities in their teens and early twenties who are considered particularly attractive or cute and who will, for a period ranging from several months to a few years, regularly appear in the mass media, e.g...
. A personality construct which adapts and learns from her interaction with humans, she irresistibly attracts data analyst protagonist Colin Laney.
Design
The ToeiToei Company
is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution corporation. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan, a modest vertically-integrated studio system by the standards of the 1930s United States; operates studios at Tokyo and Kyoto; and is a...
film and music company is a well known studio in Japan, with a well-deserved international reputation. William Gibson imagined that by the time of his Bridge Trilogy, Japanese companies with a determined research direction would be producing products much like Rei Toei, given suitable funding through customer demand.
Rei Toei is a database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
composite from the wireless broadband internet of Japan, and the world. She has been programmed to remind viewers of their favourite J-pop
J-pop
, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music, such as The Beatles, and replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene...
idols, which in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
are known as (sounding like the English Idol). Her singing voice and performance styles are composites as well, giving her the ability to encompass the viewer's preference as well. In this way, her AI agent form is very similar to user accounts on a group-sharing Mainframe Computer
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
.
Implicit in her design is that she is not one Idoru, but many. Individual viewers and fans will have a personalised Rei Toei album, video, and collection of images, as 'she' can be and is customised according to the tastes of viewers. Within the titular novel, it is implied that over-zealous fans have purposes that are threatening her and her parent company's reputations. The incipient scandal that might develop should Rei be successfully hacked and/or dbase-polluted are the reasons for the hiring of Colin Laney by Toei Ltd.
Projection
By the time Rei Toei has become a commercial entity, commercial in-space animated full-colour holography is also a commercial reality. As noted above, a personalised Rei Toei exist for individual viewers with Net access. However, for public concerts, Rei will take on an appearance that is a group consensus based on the membership of her audience.The Expert's View
For most people, Rei Toei presents an aetherial effect on the sense based on her targeted AI, which modifies appearance based on Net profile of the user, which Rei can analyse on the fly and in real time, with multiple projections for multiple viewers, providing that the demands of viewer profile do not overload her system.Colin Laney is introduced as a quantitative data analyst. With experience in viewing databases and interpreting multiple interactions, he is conditioned through training and exposure to being able to analyze both data flow and potential errors in database queries, insertion of hacking routines, and other anomalies. His first interpretation of Rei is instructive, both in terms of himself and the Idoru's AI:
"She shimmered, and Laney could detect just immediately below the threshold of consciousness a flow of data...."