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Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ predicted cryptocurrency and the metaverse, and it also explored the idea of mind viruses that infect people via their optic nerv
by panarky 4y ago
Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ predicted cryptocurrency and the metaverse, and it also explored the idea of mind viruses that infect people via their optic nerves. Not too big of a leap to imagine a chat AI that spreads mind viruses not by writing code that executes on a CPU, but by propagating dangerous and contagious ideas tailored to each individual.
- a_f 4y ago>mind viruses Could this be memes? I'm not sure I look forward to a future that is going to be controlled by mobs reacting negatively to AI-generated image macros with white text. Well, if we are not there already
- thwarted 4y agoMore apt for this thread about risk is probably the book Neuromamcer, its AIs Wintermute and Neuromamcer, and the Turing Police. In the book, the Wintermute AI played an extremely long game to merge with its countpart AI by constantly manipulating people to do its bidding and hiding/obscuring its activities. The most memorable direct example from the book, to me, is convincing a child to find and hide a physical key, then having the child killed, so only it knew where the key was located.
- mcv 4y ago> Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ predicted cryptocurrency and the metaverse The mateverse is named after the one from Snow Crash. Did Tolkien predict the popularity of elves, dwarves, hobbits and wizards, or inspire it?