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Accelerando (2005)

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Re: Accelerando (2005)

#41

Post by jaggederest »

_alternator_ wrote: post #32
utilityhotbar wrote: post #20

This was written in 2005(!) -> > Manfred drains his beer glass, sets it down, stands up, and begins to walk along the main road, phone glued to the side of his head. He wraps his throat mike around the cheap black plastic casing, pipes the input to a simple listener process. "Are you saying you taught yourself the language just so you could talk to me?" > "Da, was easy: Spawn billion-node neural network, and download…

This was a genetically modified space lobster talking to Mangred, right? I haven't verified but I've been assuming that the lobster mascot for OpenClaw was a reference to Accelerando.

Not an actual meatspace genetically modified space lobster, it was a neural network based on genetically modified lobsters uploaded to spacecraft that had achieved sentience and autonomy after it hacked its self-modification prevention code.

If OpenClaw was an Accelerando reference that's an incredibly deep cut and super cool imo

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#42

Post by lbrito »

Tried it because of Goodreads recommendations, couldn't get past the first 30 pages or so. First book ever I rage quitted. The main character is so unlikeable and the weird sex stuff was too repulsive.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#43

Post by danschuller »

sohex wrote: post #37

Accelerando and The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (and that series as a whole) are the best examples of how weird the future is going to get I’ve read. Other series like The Culture are amazing too, but the aforementioned feel possible in a way that others don’t. For me, I can see the causal chains leading from here to there vividly in a way that you don’t get with a lot of other sci-fi. That combination of plausi…

I'm reading Accelerando at the moment and I kept thinking about The Quantum Thief. I enjoyed the Quantum Thief more, but Accelerando feels more relevant to the current times.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#44

Post by jaggederest »

FL33TW00D wrote: post #14

Anyone have recommendations on books that can rival the first part of Accelerando in number of prescient ideas about how the near future, pre singularity might look? My own list is: Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon Counting Heads by David Marusek Nexus by Ramez Naam Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge But I'm always on the look out for more! The more predictive the better!

Toss "Signal to Noise" and "A Signal Shattered" both by Eric S. Nylund into the pot - interesting conceptual things around biotech/selfmodification singularities in addition to the more common computational singularities.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#45

Post by db48x »

fellowmartian wrote: post #15
wainstead wrote: post #10

Read this over a decade ago and it’s been on my mind a lot lately. Very timely. The notion of the inner solar system being converted into computronium sounds less and less far-fetched with each passing month.

Is it? Literally nothing even remotely similar from the book is happening in reality beyond the lobsters’ broken command of language being similar to early GPTs, but even they seem to have had a better world model than our current SOTA.

That’s because the lobsters were an AI using an LLM to communicate. All we have is the LLM.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#46

Post by caconym_ »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #21

Sorry to hijack the topic (slightly), but after reading all books from The Culture by Iain M. Banks I'm looking for similar Sci-fi. Any recommendations?

Echoing others, Reynolds (House of Suns, Pushing Ice, the Revelation Space series), Stross (Accelerando, Glasshouse, and Saturn's Children/Neptune's Brood are my favorites), and Rajaniemi (the Quantum Thief trilogy) scratch roughly the same itch for me.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#47

Post by lelandfe »

colinb wrote: post #11

Do I remember correctly that one of the major characters in what we would now call an influencer with always-on video glasses? I think his spectacles get slashdotted at one point. I’m not sure which is the greater anachronism got me. That I didn’t find the idea of endless surveillance creep glasses bothersome at the time I read the book or that slashdotting is in itself a once current, now newly archaic term.

For another always-on video glasses treatment, I really liked this short film from 2016: https://vimeo.com/166807261

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#48

Post by adamgordonbell »

_alternator_ wrote: post #32
utilityhotbar wrote: post #20

This was written in 2005(!) -> > Manfred drains his beer glass, sets it down, stands up, and begins to walk along the main road, phone glued to the side of his head. He wraps his throat mike around the cheap black plastic casing, pipes the input to a simple listener process. "Are you saying you taught yourself the language just so you could talk to me?" > "Da, was easy: Spawn billion-node neural network, and download…

This was a genetically modified space lobster talking to Mangred, right? I haven't verified but I've been assuming that the lobster mascot for OpenClaw was a reference to Accelerando.

I think its more a fun coincidence. OpenClaw was OpenClaude was it not, but had to change name.

When I'm dictating to Claude Code, whisper often outputs 'cloud code' or 'clawed code' for my 'Claude Code.' So I ahd assumed he just took a homonym.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#49

Post by staplers »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #29
SonnyTark wrote: post #19

Accelerando has prophecies that are coming true and it's scary. Spoiler warning in case you want to read it. The first part's main character basically has the future version of openclaw running in his glasses that let him dispatch agents to do any tasks/research he wants or to autonomously do things for him. -> we are already kinda here He's got such total dependency on his agents that when he loses his glasses he's…

https://ucp.dev/ looks an awful lot like the first step towards Economics 2.0

A Google API?

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#50

Post by growt »

SonnyTark wrote: post #19

Accelerando has prophecies that are coming true and it's scary. Spoiler warning in case you want to read it. The first part's main character basically has the future version of openclaw running in his glasses that let him dispatch agents to do any tasks/research he wants or to autonomously do things for him. -> we are already kinda here He's got such total dependency on his agents that when he loses his glasses he's…

Even more fitting is the part of the story where a collective of uploaded lobster minds are involved. I wonder if that was an inspiration for the "OpenClaw" name somehow or just pure coincidence.
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