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I have enjoyed reading "The Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke which talks about seed ships and the culture rise from that. It's an interesting read.
by cstever 4y ago
I have enjoyed reading "The Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke which talks about seed ships and the culture rise from that. It's an interesting read.
- koheripbal 4y agoThe seeds of humanity won't be humanity at all, but the AI.
- skrebbel 4y agoI’m imagining a spaceship landing at a deserted planet millions of years in the future and then just sitting there, generating pictures of cities in the sky and Mona Lisa on a surfboard.
- bpodgursky 4y agoKind of a fun hybrid where AI is clearly dominant in an established solar system, but it ends up being impossible to miniaturize the enormous supply chain necessary to fabricate microprocessors, so to colonize a new solar system it actually ends up being necessary to send self-replicating carbon-based humans who will then bootstrap the industrial supply chain necessary for AGI. (repeat ad infinitum for the rest of the galaxy, humans live only on the frontier)
- phh 4y agoWho came first? The AGI or the human?
- ianmcgowan 4y agoI'd buy that book!
- antifa 4y agoI think we'll figure out how to give your brain access to something like an AMD Ryzen long before we figure how to make a processor into an AI or make one that's concious.
- narrator 4y agoIt seems that there's a very pessimistic trend with regards to estimating the feasibility of engineering human biology for inhabiting outer space. Everyone just wants to let AI do it. I think this is because the progress of biotech has been so glacial. This is largely due to regulation. China will probably change the rules around at some point to allow for more flexibility here, with lots of moral outrage and handwringing in the west, and speed off into the future.
- partdavid 4y agoWell, I think that's really just an implementation detail. The point is that we will engineer our successor beings, whether than engineering is computery or mad sciencey or both.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoIt's all fun and games until you think about the practicalities of building a self-repairing machine that can keep running for hundreds/thousands/millions of years with no significant software or hardware errors.
- bqmjjx0kac 4y agoSpecifically without becoming a paperclip optimizer.
- solarengineer 4y agoI’m reminded of the starship Destiny in Stargate Universe. The Destiny spaceship travels from one Solar system to the other, and occasionally dives into stars to refuel itself. https://youtu.be/8iXoK39yLQM https://youtu.be/8iXoK39yLQM
- koheripbal 4y agoA thinking machine would handle errors. That seems simple. Are you imagining that "AI" would be a static piece of code?
- barbazoo 4y agoAnother book along those lines I enjoyed reading was "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
- detritus 4y agoWonderfully written, but for my shame I expected a different storyline and put it down a year or so ago after only reading 60 pages or so and haven't gone back to it. I keep packing it one times away, but... . One day I might learn how to have a kid AND read books :/
- myko 4y agoI started reading the Foundation trilogy out loud to my infant. One gets through the books a lot more slowly but it works! I must admit that even if he falls asleep I'll cheat and finish the chapter (still reading vocally). Bonus: it lets me practice voices for DM'ing DnD games
- detritus 4y agohaha, I should try that perhaps - particularly as I happen to have been carrying Foundation around in my bag and barely managing to read about two pages on my commute :) I never was good at reading when there's interesting Life to gawp at out the window.
- ge96 4y agoAnother book Bobiverse series