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None of the movies and stories you mentioned were about the "rise of AGI". The closest you can get might be The Matrix via Animatrix? You can go look up what th

None of the movies and stories you mentioned were about the "rise of AGI". The closest you can get might be The Matrix via Animatrix? You can go look up what the authors meant by their pieces, there's plenty of analysis of each of those stories. In addition I would love a citation on "the rise of AGI" being a fear in sci-fi for a long time, I've enjoyed quite a bit of science fiction literature and I can only think of a handful that even touched on the idea.

flir 2y ago
Neuromancer. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Erewhon.
- krainboltgreene 2y ago
  You have massively confused "AGI as a plot point" with "is what the literary work is about". For example Neuromancer is about trauma and identity. If I'm being charitable I could give you Erewhon, but that's only because a major theme is anthropocentrism. A vast majority of the book is a criticism of victorian society. Ellison's analysis of his own work is pretty well known and while not specifically about AGI is definitely about technology misuse, so you win there.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    This is an absurd level of nitpicking... the phrase "is about" means both of those things in common speech, and everyone can tell which you mean depending on context. Language is defined by regular people through its use and context, scholars only describe it after the fact- to their extreme dismay. You might be technically correct within the jargon of, e.g. an academic literature course, but you aren't correct to insist the words mean that unless you are in that context, with that audience, where it has that meaning. Moreover, I don't think you are correct, even in the literary sense, when saying, for example, what Neuromancer is about. I don't really care what an author says it's about, most artists are channeling something unconscious and often have very little conscious understanding of what their work is actually about. I've read plenty of Gibson books. The guy is an absolute luddite, and writes on a typewriter. He is terrified of how dangerous and dehumanizing technology is, and all of his books are "about" an all-consuming fear of technology and the changes it causes.
    - krainboltgreene 2y ago
      I don't really care about your opinions on academic literary analysis, it's OK to be wrong and have your own thoughts on the matter, but prepare to be confused when people don't agree that the Transformer movies are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles. For someone who doesn't care what Gibson thinks of his own artistic works you sure do have a strong opinion on Gibson's artistic work.
      - _yb2s 2y ago
        You are mis-representing people that intuitively understand that a phrase can have different meanings depending on context, as fundamentally confused and actually muddling the two concepts. Nobody would say "transformers are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles" but people would say it is "about aliens that can turn into vehicles." They might also say something like it's "about the the struggle to live day to day without being sure if everyday things are truly as they seem" - if that's were what it's about- I'm not actually familiar with transformers. As an academic and a human (both!) I think it is important to remember how to keep the jargon from whatever you study distinct in your mind from common usage, so you can still communicate with people that didn't study whatever you studied.
        krainboltgreene 2y ago
        You're welcome to make assumptions about what I'm doing, but at the end of the day you have to contend with the fact that I read a comment at face value, in the context, and then multiple people tried to back that original comment up. Maybe if you were the original author your opinion on what they were "trying to say" would matter, but it doesn't.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        Who was the original author?
        flir 2y ago
        My son's just completed an essay on Marxist themes in Blake. I think this guy's ideas of what literary analysis is and is not are pretty idiosyncratic, to be honest.
  - flir 2y ago
    If not Neuromancer (although I feel differently) then Queen of Angels (Greg Bear). It's the most fascinating take on AI I've ever read - the entanglement with the themes of justice and punishment is thought-provoking. The Turing Option (Harry Harrison, Marvin Minsky). I can't stress strongly enough, do not read this book. It's terrible. But it does exist.
    - krainboltgreene 2y ago
      Again I must stress you've confused theme with plot point. I haven't read QOA in a long time, but I'm pretty sure it was about identity and justice.
      - flir 2y ago
        It's about an AI struggling to become conscious! Alarms go off when it uses the word "I"! The whole point of that subplot is why that AI can't achieve consciousness, but the one sent to Alpha Centauri[?] can. It writes essays meditating on its circumstances, the way humans have treated it and its sibling, it writes an essay exploring whether punishment of others is a gateway to self-awareness... You want to tell me the theme of that thread is human identity? It's our responsiblity to our creations. It's what does it mean to be sentient? It's the ethics of using a self-aware AI as a tool. (Amongst many other things).
        krainboltgreene 2y ago
        It contains an AI struggling to become human (to gain identity), if I remember correctly. Either way, we're way off course from "it was a great fear of scifi that AGI would become a risk" to "a book with AGI as the vessel for metaphor about humanity exists".
teo_zero 2y ago
I understood "rise of AGI" as if preceded by "uncontrolled": a runaway intelligence that ultimately turns against its creators. In that sense, yes, those movies do include this theme. Your comment makes sense if you intend "rise of AGI" as just growth. But then why should it be a concern?
- krainboltgreene 2y ago
  None of those movies have AGI as a theme, you have confused "theme" with "plot point".
cma 2y ago
Terminator 2 and a deleted scene, but the essence of it was there in the movie https://www.youtube.com/v=1UZeHJyiMG8& https://www.youtube.com/v=1UZeHJyiMG8&
- genezeta 2y ago
  Corrected link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8
_yb2s 2y ago
Skynet??!!?! It seems so obvious that I am having a hard time understanding your objection... it would feel condescending to try to explain that Terminator is about AGI risk. The modern conceptualization of AI existential risk comes largely from Vernor Vinge, in particular his essay "The Coming Technological Singularity" but it is also a central theme in most of his works, especially the Zones of Thought series.
- 8note 2y ago
  I think it's about as much about ai risk as transformers is. I'm terms of skynet I think you'd be referring to the third one? But that one is about drone strikes, and that's what we do today without AGI - we send out invincible killer robots to go wipe out villages from above because all males above the age of 16 are enemy combatants. The end of the movie could just as easily have been that they find a person behind the skynet controls killing everyone
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    The overall plot of Terminator is that an AGI called Skynet becomes self aware and unstoppable sometime in the mid 1980s and humans only hope of survival is to use time travel to destroy it before this happens. I’ll admit this isn’t very well explained to the audience, and the focus is mostly on Arnold blowing things up.
    - krainboltgreene 2y ago
      I don't think anyone is confused about Terminator's plot, but people in this thread are definitely confused about what theme means and how to do literary analysis (not surprising given the context of this website).

flir 2y ago

Neuromancer. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Erewhon.

krainboltgreene 2y ago
You have massively confused "AGI as a plot point" with "is what the literary work is about". For example Neuromancer is about trauma and identity. If I'm being charitable I could give you Erewhon, but that's only because a major theme is anthropocentrism. A vast majority of the book is a criticism of victorian society. Ellison's analysis of his own work is pretty well known and while not specifically about AGI is definitely about technology misuse, so you win there.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  This is an absurd level of nitpicking... the phrase "is about" means both of those things in common speech, and everyone can tell which you mean depending on context. Language is defined by regular people through its use and context, scholars only describe it after the fact- to their extreme dismay. You might be technically correct within the jargon of, e.g. an academic literature course, but you aren't correct to insist the words mean that unless you are in that context, with that audience, where it has that meaning. Moreover, I don't think you are correct, even in the literary sense, when saying, for example, what Neuromancer is about. I don't really care what an author says it's about, most artists are channeling something unconscious and often have very little conscious understanding of what their work is actually about. I've read plenty of Gibson books. The guy is an absolute luddite, and writes on a typewriter. He is terrified of how dangerous and dehumanizing technology is, and all of his books are "about" an all-consuming fear of technology and the changes it causes.
  - krainboltgreene 2y ago
    I don't really care about your opinions on academic literary analysis, it's OK to be wrong and have your own thoughts on the matter, but prepare to be confused when people don't agree that the Transformer movies are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles. For someone who doesn't care what Gibson thinks of his own artistic works you sure do have a strong opinion on Gibson's artistic work.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      You are mis-representing people that intuitively understand that a phrase can have different meanings depending on context, as fundamentally confused and actually muddling the two concepts. Nobody would say "transformers are about the dangers of aliens turning into vehicles" but people would say it is "about aliens that can turn into vehicles." They might also say something like it's "about the the struggle to live day to day without being sure if everyday things are truly as they seem" - if that's were what it's about- I'm not actually familiar with transformers. As an academic and a human (both!) I think it is important to remember how to keep the jargon from whatever you study distinct in your mind from common usage, so you can still communicate with people that didn't study whatever you studied.
      - krainboltgreene 2y ago
        You're welcome to make assumptions about what I'm doing, but at the end of the day you have to contend with the fact that I read a comment at face value, in the context, and then multiple people tried to back that original comment up. Maybe if you were the original author your opinion on what they were "trying to say" would matter, but it doesn't.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        Who was the original author?
      - flir 2y ago
        My son's just completed an essay on Marxist themes in Blake. I think this guy's ideas of what literary analysis is and is not are pretty idiosyncratic, to be honest.
- flir 2y ago
  If not Neuromancer (although I feel differently) then Queen of Angels (Greg Bear). It's the most fascinating take on AI I've ever read - the entanglement with the themes of justice and punishment is thought-provoking. The Turing Option (Harry Harrison, Marvin Minsky). I can't stress strongly enough, do not read this book. It's terrible. But it does exist.
  - krainboltgreene 2y ago
    Again I must stress you've confused theme with plot point. I haven't read QOA in a long time, but I'm pretty sure it was about identity and justice.
    - flir 2y ago
      It's about an AI struggling to become conscious! Alarms go off when it uses the word "I"! The whole point of that subplot is why that AI can't achieve consciousness, but the one sent to Alpha Centauri[?] can. It writes essays meditating on its circumstances, the way humans have treated it and its sibling, it writes an essay exploring whether punishment of others is a gateway to self-awareness... You want to tell me the theme of that thread is human identity? It's our responsiblity to our creations. It's what does it mean to be sentient? It's the ethics of using a self-aware AI as a tool. (Amongst many other things).
      - krainboltgreene 2y ago
        It contains an AI struggling to become human (to gain identity), if I remember correctly. Either way, we're way off course from "it was a great fear of scifi that AGI would become a risk" to "a book with AGI as the vessel for metaphor about humanity exists".

teo_zero 2y ago

I understood "rise of AGI" as if preceded by "uncontrolled": a runaway intelligence that ultimately turns against its creators. In that sense, yes, those movies do include this theme. Your comment makes sense if you intend "rise of AGI" as just growth. But then why should it be a concern?

krainboltgreene 2y ago
None of those movies have AGI as a theme, you have confused "theme" with "plot point".

cma 2y ago

Terminator 2 and a deleted scene, but the essence of it was there in the movie https://www.youtube.com/v=1UZeHJyiMG8& https://www.youtube.com/v=1UZeHJyiMG8&

genezeta 2y ago
Corrected link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8

_yb2s 2y ago

Skynet??!!?! It seems so obvious that I am having a hard time understanding your objection... it would feel condescending to try to explain that Terminator is about AGI risk. The modern conceptualization of AI existential risk comes largely from Vernor Vinge, in particular his essay "The Coming Technological Singularity" but it is also a central theme in most of his works, especially the Zones of Thought series.

8note 2y ago
I think it's about as much about ai risk as transformers is. I'm terms of skynet I think you'd be referring to the third one? But that one is about drone strikes, and that's what we do today without AGI - we send out invincible killer robots to go wipe out villages from above because all males above the age of 16 are enemy combatants. The end of the movie could just as easily have been that they find a person behind the skynet controls killing everyone
- _yb2s 2y ago
  The overall plot of Terminator is that an AGI called Skynet becomes self aware and unstoppable sometime in the mid 1980s and humans only hope of survival is to use time travel to destroy it before this happens. I’ll admit this isn’t very well explained to the audience, and the focus is mostly on Arnold blowing things up.
  - krainboltgreene 2y ago
    I don't think anyone is confused about Terminator's plot, but people in this thread are definitely confused about what theme means and how to do literary analysis (not surprising given the context of this website).