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The Gentle Seduction (1989)

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Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#31

Post by solenoid0937 »

a022311 wrote: post #28

I read the whole thing and I think it's useful to view this topic under a different lens. The most astonishing part for me is that it was written over 30 years ago! I'm a bit grateful that science today isn't nearly that advanced. It would be cool to be able to explore the world like the main character, but then again it seemed so sad and miserable. I share her sentiment from the beginning of the story: I don't want…

Having near-death experiences has made me much more scared of death. I realized I do not want eternal nothingness and nonexistence. I like existing, loving, etc.

I do not think death adds any value. It certainly does not motivate me in any way. I don't do things because I will die, I do things because I want to. Most of the time I am not thinking about death at all. When I do, it is only with a sense of sadness/dread.

> Living a short, happy life is much better than being miserable forever

IMO this is a false dichotomy. You could also live an immortal happy life in this scenario.

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#32

Post by Xophmeister »

A chilling vision of the future, where phone books and checkbooks still exist ;)

I have the impression that nanotechnology was very in vogue for science fiction around the late-80s and early-90s…and yet, these days, it’s seemingly disappeared; both as a sci-fi trope and, AFAIK, an area of industrial/medical R&D. Why is that? Did it just atrophy, perhaps combined with unmet expectations, or did we discover some limit that makes the technology infeasible?

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#33

Post by unionjack22 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #29

I think "seduction" as in Baudrillard https://monoskop.org/images/9/96/Baudrillard_Jean_Seduction.... which has a great intro about how "the more liberated people think they are talking about sex the less liberated they are" and towards the end anticipates the arc that video games will follow back when Pong and Space Invaders were state of the art. Funny enough when I got obsessed with seduction as a topic in 2021 an…

Comments like these, aside from the brilliant technical answers and dives, really highlight the value of HN. What a lovely Sunday read I shall have—I’ve been getting distracted by the phone and world news. Reading Baudillard and Debord should help reestablish what’s noise and what isn’t.

Thank you.

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#34

Post by moffkalast »

WithinReason wrote: post #26
Recursing wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imho https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/1995-egan.pdf from 1995 is an even better exploration of the same theme For more on why I'm skeptical it will end this way, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artifici... I don't see why machines should keep biological life around, since they'll be much more efficient

Efficient for what? What reason has AI to exist?

Well our purpose is to turn low entropy into high entropy, that's what drove the existence of life. If machines can do it faster then they'll win out eventually.

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#35

Post by davedigerati »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It'll take at least a hundred years for us to get to Singularity” We’re only 37 years into the story. The woman would only be in her early 60s. With revised estimates, The Singularity is now less than 20 years away.

I hope you're right but I'm skeptical. ASI in 20 years? Are we even on the right track to AGI, or are LLMs a red herring?

AGI via LLMs: No. The AI will need a natural understanding of the real world (the physics you and I live within) and ability to self-modify it's training (ie learn), so we're working on hybrid AI architectures which may include LLMs, but not rely on them. And imho Yes we are solidly on track to AGI <5 yrs 8)

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#36

Post by solenoid0937 »

andrepd wrote: post #30
solenoid0937 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are more objective reasons to be pessimist about technology than optimist. Strongly disagree, it's why I'm not dying in a ditch of famine at the ripe age of 30. > to produce not a machine to cure cancer, but to produce fake slop as indistinguishable from human speech or real images as possible Arguably a stepping stone to better technologies, and a prerequisite to machine intelligence

> Strongly disagree, it's why I'm not dying in a ditch of famine at the ripe age of 30. I'm obviously talking about the future of technology and not about technology in general. I agree that vaccines and antibiotics and fertilisers and the three field system and writing and the automatic bread slicer are all good technologies that improved our lives. The """innovations""" peddled by big tech, AI among them, are nothi…

Many of the innovations we take for granted today followed a very similar pattern, including the backlash. https://pessimistsarchive.org/

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#37

Post by moffkalast »

hosh wrote: post #9

I ended up skimming a lot of it, though I closely read the beginning and the end. This is not a vision of humanity I agree with. Technology is not the only path towards expansion of consciousness, even though in this day and age, it appears so. The wonders, marvels, and growth described in this story can be experienced through other means. To act and build as if it is the only path is, in my opinion, deeply misguided…

I think the popularity of that stance is growing by the year.

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#38

Post by filoeleven »

bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #19
crashabr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend re-reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas as a companion story then. Maybe you'll get to underhand techno-pessimism as something more than the the result of people "forgetting the incredible technology that makes their quality of life real".

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/ Why Don’t We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole by Isabel Kim. My favorite short story of 2024, and very much worth reading if you’re at all familiar with LeGuin’s original story.

Thank you for sharing this! Having just read it now, it's quite short (~5 minute read) and I also recommend it.

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#39

Post by pixl97 »

WithinReason wrote: post #26
Recursing wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imho https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/1995-egan.pdf from 1995 is an even better exploration of the same theme For more on why I'm skeptical it will end this way, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artifici... I don't see why machines should keep biological life around, since they'll be much more efficient

Efficient for what? What reason has AI to exist?

What reason do you?

Re: The Gentle Seduction (1989)

#40

Post by gcanyon »

I really enjoyed the story (pretty sure I've read it before, but many years ago, so it's fuzzy) and I know it's not key to the plot, but I really want to know how Jack failed to survive.
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