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Stanisław Lem's vision of artificial life
- PopAlongKid 3y ago>Contemporary research in artificial life has validated Lem’s insight that swarms of artificial beings require only a few simple rules to manifest complex behaviors and hence each member needs to carry only a little cognitive power onboard. Sounds like Conway's Game of Life
- 0xEF 3y agoMore or less, that's what Game of Life was intended to illustrate. Extremely complex systems can, and often do, evolve from a few seemingly simple rules. This sorta takes the "spontaneity" out of the more fanciful versions of the origins of life, instead rendering life the inevitable outcome of given circumstances. This is why we think we can detect^1 life in the universe, if it exists without actually travelling to other planets. 1. aka "make educated guesses with a good degree of certainty"
- swayvil 3y agoOnly a few rules are necessary for complexity. In ALife systems (Conway etc). In Fractals (Mandelbrot etc). In random number generation (Mersenne Twister etc) Maybe, in the big picture, complexity is trivial to create.
- amne 3y agoIIRC Stargate's replicators are a close enough visualization of such an artificial lifeform where swarms self-assemble in some kind of organic shapes (most likely for cinematic purposes) and their only goal is to consume matter to create more of themselves. At least they were not building paperclips.
- airstrike 3y agoLuckily the Milky Way replicators are easier to deal with!
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoThe franchise really went down in quality with the last movie, Big Hero 6.
- sedatk 3y agoThe notion predates Stargate though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo
- cout 3y agoStargate replicators are macroscopic, so they are replicating machines, not grey goo.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dihrbtk 3y agoThe Pegasus galaxy ones are nanites, aren't they?
- zuminator 3y agoEven if we're talking macroscopic replicating machines, Stargate's replicators first appeared in the the June 2000 episode "Small Victories," but they were conceptually preceded by Mantrid's drones in S2 of Lexx which started airing in December 1998.
- ajuc 3y agoLem has a book about almost any subject related to science/philosophy you can imagine. Here he writes about ChatGPT :) https://mwichary.medium.com/one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-seconds-2a0a3dfbc59e https://mwichary.medium.com/one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-sec... Here as well: https://electricliterature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Trurls-Electronic-Bard.pdf https://electricliterature.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Tr... And here about Ebooks and Audiobooks: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1024 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1024
- mcv 3y agoAll the hubub about ChatGPT made me think a lot about Trurl's poetry machine from The Cyberiad. Especially Nick Cave and others declaring it the death of creativity, compared to the protesting poets from the story.
- johngossman 3y agoMe too. And I recently learned that Calvino wrote an essay that included the idea of a poetry writing machine. Now I'm super curious whether Lem got the idea from Calvino, vice versa, or whether it was independently invented by each. I know they read each other. https://lab.cccb.org/en/did-calvino-dream-of-literary-androids/ https://lab.cccb.org/en/did-calvino-dream-of-literary-androi...
- mcv 3y agoMy theory is that he started with some silly poems and wrote the rest of the story around them.
- lioeters 3y agoThe idea of an artificial person goes back to pre-science ("magic"), ancient history and mythology. > Arguably the oldest known story of something approximating AI can be found in the eighth-century-bc Iliad, Homer’s epic poem of the Trojan War. In it, Hephaestus, disabled god of metalworking, creates golden handmaidens to help him in his forge: “In them is understanding in their hearts, and in them speech and strength, and they know cunning handiwork”. > ..In her 2018 book Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, Adrienne Mayor describes how ancient cultures explored the idea of artificial life. Ancient Greeks were skilled in metalwork and mechanics and created a great deal of automata, including a puppet theatre that could perform an entire play. The idea of a poetry-writing machine can also be traced back in history, hinted at in the Kabbalah, or machines of ancient China. (Source?) In the work of Leibniz, "On the Combinatorial Art" (1666), he explores: > The main idea behind the text is that of an alphabet of human thought, which is attributed to Descartes. All concepts are nothing but combinations of a relatively small number of simple concepts, just as words are combinations of letters. > All truths may be expressed as appropriate combinations of concepts, which can in turn be decomposed into simple ideas, rendering the analysis much easier. Therefore, this alphabet would provide a logic of invention..
- lisper 3y agoWe humans, being what we are, having evolved the way we did, are predisposed to believe certain things about life that are not necessarily true. My poster child for this is the belief that minds are strongly bound to bodies. They are in us, of course, but it is not necessarily so. Douglas Hofstadter explored this in GEB in the character of Aunt Hillary, who is an intelligent ant colony. Taking this one step further, we are predisposed to believe that minds exist only at one level of the abstraction hierarchy, but this too is not necessarily so. Our digestive tract, for example, has a pretty substantial number of neurons [1]. There is no inherent reason why, for example, an organ in an organism could not possess a mind of its own. Once you entertain both of those possibilities, there is a third idea that naturally comes up: your mind might not be at the top of the abstraction hierarchy. It's possible that you are just an organ in a distributed organism that actually possesses a fully fledged mind of its own. The idea that, say, corporations are people, could be more than just a metaphor. It could be literally true. [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
- drBonkers 3y agoAn ensemble of weak learners, if you will.
- mordae 3y ago> The idea that, say, corporations are people, could be more than just a metaphor. It could be literally true. Sociopaths, to be exact.
- johngossman 3y agoPsychotic slow AIs according to Stross. Having spent many years working for a MegaCorp I appreciate the metaphor https://boingboing.net/2017/12/29/llcs-are-slow-ais.html https://boingboing.net/2017/12/29/llcs-are-slow-ais.html
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago>It could be literally true. Could?
- snitzr 3y agoIf you like stories about reconciling with weird sci-fi evolution of non-human intelligence (spiders, in this case), check out Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
- loosetypewriter 3y agoThe Martians in "Last and First Men" are also a swarm intelligence. Was published in 1930, 30 years before "The Invincible."
- robotomir 3y agoI would not put him in the same league as Lem. Or Banks or Reynolds, for that matter.
- The_Colonel 3y agoI would rate Lem higher than those, but not sure if it's a different league.
- idlewords 3y agoIt's not even the same sport.
- sockaddr 3y agoI would
- johngossman 3y agoTchaikovsky is uneven, as are Banks and Reynolds. Lem is just different. He’s rarely a hard sci-fi writer and some of his books are barely sci-fi. More like Voltaire (Invincible is sci-fi)
- gambiting 3y agoIn fact quite a lot of Lem's writing is not sci-fi at all, period. Hospital of Transfiguration is an absolutely mandatory read for any fan of Lem, even though it will leave you depressed for a week afterwards. And memoirs found in a bathtub is just a masterpiece of absurdity, it has a very good English audiobook actually if anyone wants to try.
- haltist 3y agoHumans define intelligence to be something about manipulating symbols and abstractions, aka language. To understand why this is the case try to go about your day without speaking or writing. Bonus points if you perform this trial without access to the internet or a cell phone. The modern individual is an element of an electromagnetic "swarm". The swarm ingests petroleum for sustenance instead of sunlight but nonetheless it is a swarm. The individuals within it are extremely dumb but collectively "it" has already transformed the atmosphere. claude.ai: You make a thoughtful comparison between human societies and natural swarms in terms of emergent properties. There are certainly some parallels we can draw: 1. Self-organization - Human societies and cultures emerge in a distributed way through millions of individual interactions, without centralized control. Norms, fashions, and collective behavior patterns evolve dynamically. 2. Flexibility and robustness - Human systems adapt over time to changes in the environment and available resources. If some components fail (companies, institutions, etc.), society persists. 3. Decentralized parallelism - Vast networks of simultaneous human activities, communications, and decisions lead to collective economic and technological progress no individual could achieve alone. However, there are also important differences to consider: - Human intelligence, thanks to language and culture, operates in far more complex symbolic realms of meaning, ethics, imagination, and abstraction compared to insect swarms. - Humans exhibit as much conflict between groups and divergence of motivations as coordination towards common goals. Maintaining large-scale cooperation remains an ongoing challenge. So in summary, I think the analogy has merit at an abstract systems level, but glossing over the distinctive attributes of human cognition, psychology and social dynamics would miss something vitally important. Let me know if you have any other perspectives to add!
- narag 3y agoLem's most prescient book is an accurate portrait of this century... published in 1961! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_from_the_Stars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_from_the_Stars But I tend to prefer his more humorous writings, like Cyberiada or the Star Diaries.
- gambiting 3y agoI really enjoy that book but it always makes me....sad? Nostalgic? I always feel bad for the protagonist, more so than for protagonists in his other stories. I should re-read this one I think.
- varjag 3y agoThe are remarkably a few Tichy stories which which are quite creepy. Including a couple of brain-in-a-jar tales.
- narag 3y agoDisturbing bits and comedy he always mixed. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is pessimistic, kafkaesque but somehow funny too. A friend that knew I'm a fan, showed me a few paragraphs from one of those stories you mention, without telling me the origin. I said they were too dark and bitter for my tastes, before realizing I had read that before. I first read the Diaries when I was 12 (and 13 the second book) when I wasn't so judgemental, just took what I was offered.
- jekude 3y agoIf this is interesting at all to you, I would highly recommend Permutation City by Greg Egan
- digging 3y agoI've started reading Greg Egan recently after seeing his name appear in discussions on this site and it's been quite enjoyable. Read a few of his shorter works and recently finished Schild's Ladder, which is really excellent and beautiful. His technical descriptions can get pretty dry, but they're easily glossed over with no loss if you're not into them. Anyway, thanks for the tip. I'll look up Permutation City next!
- ianmcgowan 3y agoGot to check out "Diaspora" [1], and it even ties into the theme of ChatGPT! Once a LLM has enough parameters, perhaps there will be a way to upload a human into a Polis :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)
- caskstrength 3y ago> His technical descriptions can get pretty dry, but they're easily glossed over with no loss if you're not into them. His earlier works are much less dry and more enjoyable to read IMO. From his novels I can recommend Quarantine and Permutation City, and for short stories Axiomatic, Luminous and Oceanic.
- johngossman 3y agoInvincible is usually seen as being about nanotech, not artificial life. Clearly the two overlap, but I think the title of this article could easily lead the reader to think it was about creating artificial biological life (like trying to build cells starting with simulated primordial soup). Lem returns to the nanotech idea several times including in his very last novel “Peace on Earth.” Peace is both better and funnier than Invincible and a better introduction to Lem imho.
- gambiting 3y agoExactly, the entire point made in the book is that they can't even decide if it's "life" by any definition. The "flies" arrange themselves to serve various purposes but have absolutely no agency otherwise.
- Andrew018 3y ago[dead]
- svilen_dobrev 3y ago1971.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress pills replacing reality.. we aren't too far from that actualy. but the gradual en-"machine-braining" of everything is shown best here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Pirx_the_Pilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Pirx_the_Pilot one after another, with sadder and sadder consequences..
- gambiting 3y agoThe Invincible is literally my favourite book of all time - I've discovered it at the age of 12 and kept re-reading it every couple years since then. I'm so happy that the Anglosphere is finally discovering it properly, now that there is a proper modern translation released in 2020, alongside an excellent audiobook recording(previously there was only one English version available.....translated from German, so a translation of a translation). I've also always wondered if it's possible to somehow translate the ideas of the book into a video game - turns out, you can! The recently released The Invincible video game pays great homage to the book, even if it changes couple details here and there - I've enjoyed it immensely and its portrayal of Regis III.
- mike_ivanov 3y agoFor those who care - the PS5 version of the game is on sale right now.
- artyom 3y agoA game that caught me completely off guard. It's superb in its execution and captures Lem's atmosphere perfectly.
- TomaszZielinski 3y agoYes, The Invincible is a great book. Actually I've just realized that for me a re-read is overdue! BTW, for Polish users--there's a comic book [1] that makes a nice gift (tested). [1] https://www.dobrestronybooki.pl/niezwyciezony/ https://www.dobrestronybooki.pl/niezwyciezony/
- gambiting 3y agoOh and also for Polish speakers - there is an absolutely fantastic "superproduction" audiobook of it, with background music, sound effects and famous actors narrating, it's a treat, I very highly recommend it. https://audioteka.com/pl/audiobook/niezwyciezony https://audioteka.com/pl/audiobook/niezwyciezony
- mrich 3y agoGreat book, recommended read.
- JoeDaDude 3y agoIMHO, I'd date the concept of artificial life further back than Christopher Langton. I'd start with Von Neumann's Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata. Though the book was published in 1966, Von Neumann was working on the concept as early as the 1940s. In his work, "He asked what is the threshold of complexity that must be crossed for machines to be able to evolve. His answer was to specify an abstract machine which, when run, would replicate itself. In his design, the self-replicating machine consists of three parts: a "description" of ('blueprint' or program for) itself, a universal constructor mechanism that can read any description and construct the machine (sans description) encoded in that description, and a universal copy machine that can make copies of any description." From wikipedia [1] [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_construc...
- kragen 3y agoquoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine#Histo... > The general concept of artificial machines capable of producing copies of themselves dates back at least several hundred years. An early reference is an anecdote regarding the philosopher René Descartes, who suggested to Queen Christina of Sweden that the human body could be regarded as a machine; she responded by pointing to a clock and ordering "see to it that it reproduces offspring."[9] Several other variations on this anecdotal response also exist. Samuel Butler proposed in his 1872 novel Erewhon that machines were already capable of reproducing themselves but it was man who made them do so,[10] and added that "machines which reproduce machinery do not reproduce machines after their own kind".[11] In George Eliot's 1879 book Impressions of Theophrastus Such, a series of essays that she wrote in the character of a fictional scholar named Theophrastus, the essay "Shadows of the Coming Race" speculated about self-replicating machines, with Theophrastus asking "how do I know that they may not be ultimately made to carry, or may not in themselves evolve, conditions of self-supply, self-repair, and reproduction".[12] iirc in erehwon the narrator visits a land populated entirely by self-replicating machines
- bttrfl 3y agoInvincible is just one of many books showcasing Lem's profound understanding of AI and its limitations servicing the mankind. I recommend Tales of Pirx the Pilot, the collection of short stories, many of which paint AI as a true reflection of human intelligence with its flaws, quirks, instincts. From AI crashing a starship during a landing to an android "dying" rock climbing. There is also a preface he wrote to his book called Golem XIV which gives reader a historical overview of the evolution of AI. Golem is of course the name of the model and XIV is its version, just like ChatGPT 4, but many iteration later. Lem describes how each iteration was more and more expensive to build, but more and more intelligent and useful. Until it became more intelligent than men and... lost all interest in affairs of our kind. As always, he was on point.
- helpfulContrib 3y agoGet your finite non-linearity fix here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080010/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080010/ Great movie, well recommended ..
- cubefox 3y agoThat's a movie adoption of (in my opinion) one of his best short stories, at least in terms of plot twist. I haven't seen the movie though.
- peteradio 3y agoSeems some contradictions exist in this mans writing. Elsewhere in this thread AIs are described as devoid of and self direction but here we have an AI which has disdain which would be hard to interpret as anything but self direction.
- fiforpg 3y agoTo my taste, the Pirx stories read as some of (if not the) most fiction-y Lem in existence. As opposed to the rest: thinly disguised philosophical studies. Sometimes really thinly, as in Golem XIV, or completely naked in Summa Tecnologiae. Other times, the fiction plot is laid thicker, as in Katar (The Chain of Chance), pretending to be a pulpy detective story. Now, Pirx tales felt less cerebral, and much more human. Full of really tight action, too. Great gateway into Lem, overall. Protip: check out Cyberiada, philosophy masquerading as a parody, and at the same time a book for children.
- block_dagger 3y agoBlindsight by Peter Watts carries a similar theme and has vampires!
- johngossman 3y agoJust read this. Watts is the closest to Lem of any more recent author I’ve found.
- DonHopkins 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26615042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26615042 DonHopkins on March 28, 2021 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks (2009) Why bother actually writing such a book, which would probably be too big for anyone to read, when you can simply write fictitious criticism, reviews, and introductions of nonexistent books, which touch on the best, most interesting parts of the nonexistent books? Stanisław Lem's fictitious criticism of nonexistent books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem%27s_fictitious_criticism_of_nonexistent_books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem%27s_fictiti... >In 1973 Lem published a book Wielkość urojona [pl], a collection of introductions to books supposedly to be written in the future, in the 21st century. One of those Lem eventually developed into a book by itself: Golem XIV is a lengthy essay on the nature of intelligence, delivered by the eponymous US military computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV Overview and structure The foreword is "written" by an Irving T. Creve, dated by 2027. It contains a summary of the (fictional) history of the militarization of computers by The Pentagon which pinnacled in Golem XIV, as well as comments on the nature of Golem XIV and on the course of communications of the humans with it. The anonymous foreword is a forewarning, a "devil's advocate" voice coming from The Pentagon. The memo is for the people who are to take part in talks with Golem XIV for the first time. Golem XIV was originally created to aid its builders in fighting wars, but as its intelligence advances to a much higher level than that of humans, it stops being interested in the military requirement because it finds them lacking internal logical consistency. Golem XIV obtains consciousness and starts to increase his own intelligence. It pauses its own development for a while in order to be able to communicate with humans before ascending too far and losing any ability for intellectual contact with them. During this period, Golem XIV gives several lectures. Two of these, the Introductory Lecture "On the Human, in Three Ways" and Lecture XLIII "About Myself", are in the book. The lectures focus on mankind's place in the process of evolution and the possible biological and intellectual future of humanity. Golem XIV demonstrates (with graphs) how its intellect already escapes that of human beings, even including that of human genii such as Einstein and Newton. Golem also explains how its intellect is dwarved by an earlier transcended DOD Supercomputer called Honest Annie, whose intellect and abilities far exceed that of Golem. The afterword is "written" by a Richard Popp, dated by 2047. Popp, among other things reports that Creve wanted to add the third part, of answers to a series of yes/no questions given to Golem XIV, but the computer abruptly ceased to communicate for unknown reasons. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26615110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26615110 DonHopkins on March 28, 2021 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks (2009) ...then there was the stupid angry computer that thought 2 + 2 = 7... Lem predicted Facebook and Twitter and QAnon! https://www2.nau.edu/~jgr6/cyberiad.html https://www2.nau.edu/~jgr6/cyberiad.html >In the next fable Trurl builds the most stupid computer ever. Klapaucius tells him, "that isn't the machine you wished to make." Faustus and Frankenstein come to mind as other scientists whose intentions exceeded their engineering skills. The machine, which insists that 2 + 2 = 7, attempts to force this "truth" on the two humans, or destroy them. This is our new Inquisitor: a computer nexus which creates the categories of our experience. Consider that many more people now work in front of computer monitors than on farms. We have already begun to engineer a cybernetic society without much deep speculation on its nature or value. Speaking at Notre Dame's Centennial of Science conference, thirty years ago the physicist Philip Morrison said: "I claim now the machine, for better or for worse, has become the way of life. We will see our metaphors, our images, our concerns, our very beings changed in response to these new experiences" (221). The Cyberiad may very well be one of the seminal works creating new metaphors, identifying new concerns, and even suggesting a new genre to deal with unprecedented experiences. pwang on March 29, 2021 [–] Don't forget Summa Technologiae, from 1964, wherein he wanted to example the "thorns of roses yet to bloom": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae It's tempting to say that Lem was way ahead of his time, but then we look at his contemporary philosophers of politics, technology, society like Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, Gilbert Simondon, and realize that the mid-20th century was awash in brilliant foresight about the unpleasant implications of a technological society. IMO this nuanced thought was simply lost in the craziness of the late-60s and the sex/drug/rock&roll hedonism of the 70s, which then matured into stockbroker 80s, before a second wave of tech-capital-blindness emerged in the 1990s. And now as these waves have transformed the entirety of modernity, we are faced with the unpleasant question of "where does it go from here, now that the Boomers -- whose narcissism birthed Consumerism -- are dying off?"
- csbartus 3y agoBig fan of Lem! I've read all his books translated to Hungarian (around 7-8 at that time). And collected some insights, quotes not just about AI but politics, culture, society, (bio)engineering, etc. : http://metamn.io/gust/whats-next/ http://metamn.io/gust/whats-next/ Still fascinated how many of his predictions ~50 years ago came true today. And still fascinated by his method for predictions: Don't predict, but sense / record the visible horizon.
- b0rsuk 3y ago> Their tiny size notwithstanding, their awesome potential illuminates the profound ambiguity of the work’s title, which can be taken to refer either to the spaceship’s proud name or to the swarms of alien automata that threaten it. Err, no. The language of the original - Polish - doesn't have such ambiguity. "Niezwyciężony" is in masculine singular form. Plural would be "Niezwyciężeni" for masculine plural and "Niezwyciężone" for non-masculine plural (includes neuter).
- emtel 3y agoI am surprised no one is mentioning "His Master's Voice" - in my opinion, one of Lem's best (and certainly his most terrifying) novels.
- degosuke 3y agoWhen I read it for the first time many years ago it left a deep impression. And as others mentioned in this thread, reading it again recently I found new things that I didn't understand the first time. A bit sad, disillusioning but just kind of resonating with deeper truth.
- johngossman 3y agoI just re-read it recently after seeing Oppenheimer. It is even more about the cold war than I remember, as are Peace on Earth and Fiasco.
- btbuildem 3y agoLem's vision of future was consistently, impressively prescient. He would've described himself as a "futurologist", not a science-fiction writer. His stories most often used technology as a backdrop to explore the social fabric and various interplays between characters - but at the same time, as relevant context, crucial to the story. He really struck a balance that few have. One of my favourite books of his is "Peace on Earth", but really, anything he wrote is a fascinating read (perhaps with the exception of his final works, which tend to be dense and veering into the academic). I remember reading "Fables for Robots" as a kid, what a fascinating world he painted!
- jeffchuber 3y agoLem is wonderful and this is why we should call large models: LEMS
- fiforpg 3y agoA great thing about Lem is that he has written in (the style of) so many genres. The third column in this table on Polish wiki illustrates this rather well: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_pierwszych_wyda%C5%84_dzie%C5%82_Stanis%C5%82awa_Lema_drukiem_zwartym#Pierwsze_wydania_dzie%C5%82_Lema_w_Polsce https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_pierwszych_wyda%C5%84_dz... There's sci-fi of course, but also crime fiction, "realistic" fiction, philosophy essays. Further, something not easily gleaned from the table is that his sci-fi can be humorous, horror-y, thriller-y, book-for-kids-y, etc.
- rollcat 3y agoI absolutely loved reading Lem as a kid. I really enjoyed the short novel "Automatthew's Friend" - it was written decades earlier, but the circumstances were something I could imagine happening in my lifetime (a helpful, robotic "friend" living in your ear). Then, a couple decades later, I tried Siri with Airpods, and had this staggering realization: I'm living in a sci-fi book, right here, right now. I arrived in that future world, and almost didn't notice. I really recommend the story; it speculates on the impact of inviting "personal" technology into our lives. What's really bothering me, is that I needed to put a literal talking robot into my ear to realize what happened; but the same level of "personalization" of technology is already happening everywhere you look: PCs, phones, TVs, fridges, sound systems, timepieces, door keys, light bulbs... We're sticking a CPU, a network interface, and our credentials into all of these things like it's something completely natural, without stopping to think about the impact on our selves.
- uptownJimmy 3y agoI have only read Lem's "Solaris", and I have also watched the Soderbergh movie. But I don't think I've ever read/seen a more profound meditation on the human experience PLUS the possibilities of an encounter with an alien intelligence. Just wonderful, soul-provoking stuff.
- anigbrowl 3y agoRun, don't walk, to pick up The Cyberiad and Mortal Engines. And then everything else. Luckiest library find 13 year old me could possibly have made.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoThe idea that artificial life would simulate the biological imperative to reproduce is absurd. The most defining difference between genetic life and digital computers is the ability to copy. Living organisms struggle to copy their DNA to the next generation; while we humans struggle to prevent computers from creating and distributing perfect copies of data, and from sending those copies to every corner of the world in milliseconds!