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Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

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Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#111

Post by BeetleB »

rationalist wrote: post #104
jjoonathan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outer Wilds vibes! I love it! (It's a video game that does a brilliant job touching on similar themes to The Last Question. If you liked The Last Question and can fit a video game into your life, you will probably like Outer Wilds. Warning: if you start searching for "outer wilds," the algorithm will aggressively try to spoil you. Progression in the game is gated behind knowledge, so this is worse than usual. If you…

Just doing a simple internet search for the name to see how to get it, brings up descriptions about how after X time, Y happens. Is that a spoiler? If so, please let us know so that other people do not get spoiled, and can you provide a link or links to the game that doesn't spoil it? Thank you!

After X time, you will die.

There, I said it. The reason I say it openly is because I almost quit the game not understanding that this is supposed to happen.

Not really much of a spoiler.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#112

Post by BeetleB »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #52
NickDouglas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury, but skip the terrible frame story. The actual short stories are beautiful literature and canonical sci-fi.

As someone who loves the Big Three (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein) and have read a lot of SF, I pretty much despise Bradbury. There’s no science in his science fiction.

Not much in many of Heinlein's either. Or in Star Wars.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#113

Post by wat10000 »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #94
gwerbin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do it, it's just not "by default", they need to be prompted to do it. So at least the danger is manageable if you know what you're doing and how to prompt around it.

Not really. They're still non deterministic language predictors. Believing that a prompt is an effective way to actually control these machines' actual behavior is really far fetched. They com like that from factory. Hardcoded to never say no.

Not believing that a prompt is an effective way to actually control their behavior is obviously incorrect to anyone who's actually used these things.

It's not a guaranteed way to control their behavior, but you can more than move the needle.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#114

Post by DonaldPShimoda »

LPisGood wrote: post #106
Bridged7756 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. They're still non deterministic language predictors. Believing that a prompt is an effective way to actually control these machines' actual behavior is really far fetched. They com like that from factory. Hardcoded to never say no.

The thing is that they are completely incapable of meta-cognition. Reasoning models don’t show their actual reasoning at all.

Right — they're not reasoning, they're generating text that statistically models reasoning. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#116

Post by markus_zhang »

ggerules wrote: post #96
markus_zhang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this one? https://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/benewsletter/Issue4-8.h...

Yes! Thanks for posting! This gives the feel of what my career looked like in the 80s and early 90s.

Man you should share your story. I got through a few Linux device driver labs but the more I read the less I understand. Even the keyboard driver or the tty driver are thousands of lines long.

I don’t know how people managed to write graphics card drivers back in the day. In the 80d it’s going to be all assembly code too, I think.

They are more black magic than the non-driver kernel components. I can at least understand the concept of kernel components such as VFS/Scheduler and read legacy kernel code without too much trouble, but drivers, even those in Linux 0.12 back in 1991, are crazily hard for me.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#117

Post by wat10000 »

jimmydddd wrote: post #74
jjice wrote: post #47

An absolute classic! Was just telling a buddy about this one the other day while talking about The Egg by Andy Weir (another short story I really enjoy). Every time I read this one, I get chills at the end. Asimov really was a master.

It's amazing that in the late 1930's, someone with his academic credentials and intellect decided his life would be best spent writing science fiction.

Per Wikipedia, he published 40 novels and over 280 non-fiction books. He's best known for SF but he certainly didn't spend his whole career on it.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#118

Post by demurgos »

rationalist wrote: post #104
jjoonathan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outer Wilds vibes! I love it! (It's a video game that does a brilliant job touching on similar themes to The Last Question. If you liked The Last Question and can fit a video game into your life, you will probably like Outer Wilds. Warning: if you start searching for "outer wilds," the algorithm will aggressively try to spoil you. Progression in the game is gated behind knowledge, so this is worse than usual. If you…

Just doing a simple internet search for the name to see how to get it, brings up descriptions about how after X time, Y happens. Is that a spoiler? If so, please let us know so that other people do not get spoiled, and can you provide a link or links to the game that doesn't spoil it? Thank you!

This is a standalone game that needs to be purchased. For PC, it can be acquired through Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/). It is also available on consoles, it is not available on mobile. It is playable with keyboard and mouse, but it was primarily created with a game controller in mind.

At it's core, it's a game about exploration to understand what's happening. I recommend looking around and being curious to enjoy it, and avoid rushing. It's my favorite game.

To give you an estimate, I completed the base game with all secrets in about 20-30h. There's also a DLC called "Echoes of Eyes" adding a new area to explore. In total, I spent 45h to fully complete the game.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#120

Post by Forgeties79 »

cortesoft wrote: post #115
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #37

>INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER Boy, it sure would be nice if real LLMs were capable of giving an answer like that.

There are a lot of humans who refuse to give that answer, too

I don’t have to spend dozens if not hundreds of dollars a month to talk to most people in my life lol
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