The Battle of 2050
In 2050, nations are gone and a super AI called Kongzi governs the planet. A woman saved by machines must choose between control and conscience in the war of metal and bio.
Computer Engineer • Novelist • Poet
Basudeb Gupta is a retired computer engineer and entrepreneur who has spent fifty-five years as a working professional in computing. He has watched the great strides of computers and information science unfold in India and abroad, and brings that long view to everything he writes.
Away from daily work, he researches applications of AI in human care and writes about the effects of technological greed on human destiny. He also writes poetry in Bengali and translates world poetry into his mother tongue.
A widower who loves to cook — as enthusiastic about ethnic dishes as he is about fusion cuisine — he enjoys baking for friends and dabbling in musical instruments between software projects and manuscripts. This is his second English novel; he has also published three English graphical books for children, three Bengali story collections, and two translations of international poetry into Bengali.
Set in the year 2050, this novel imagines a world run by AI. Nations no longer exist. The planet is administered as interconnected “subsystems” overseen by a super AI called Kongzi, while real authority rests with a cartel of billionaire elites known as the Bees.
The novel follows Mili, a former lecturer in artificial intelligence who survives terminal cancer through a radical AI-driven medical breakthrough. She wakes into a world that feels alien — cities rebuilt, human caregivers replaced by humanlike robots called NEWMANs.
Parallel to Mili’s journey is a high-stakes political thriller unfolding inside PLEX, the Bees’ fortified bunker complex. Aravind, a brilliant and morally unrestrained strategist, is recruited to destroy the combined resistance of humans and NEWMANs.
The climax is a decisive confrontation between control and conscience, manipulation and solidarity. The novel concludes with an uneasy truth: the war between power and humanity never truly ends.
Control is not the same as conscience.
Solidarity is stronger than manipulation.
The war for humanity never truly ends.
Follow Basudeb Gupta on social media or get your copy of Metal and the Bio: The Battle of 2050 today.
