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Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

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Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#121

Post by krapp »

BeetleB wrote: post #112
NetMageSCW wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or even Star Trek to be honest. I don't know why Star Wars always gets passed off as "science fantasy" when it's a more grounded universe than Trek by far - space wizards notwithstanding (which Trek has plenty of.)

Even in a lot of hard SF, a lot of the science is wonky if it falls outside of the author's special interest or area of expertise. Relevant to Asimov, the only reason robots have "positronic" brains in his stories is that positrons were a new discovery at the time and it sounded cool and futuristic to him.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#122

Post by triceratops »

wat10000 wrote: post #117
jimmydddd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> He's best known for SF but he certainly didn't spend his whole career on it.

Indeed after becoming a giant of the field in the 1940s and 1950s, when he wrote most of the novels and short stories we know him for (Robots, Foundation and Empire) he took a long hiatus. In the 1960s and 70s, as far as I can tell, his meager sci-fi output consisted of some short stories, a couple of novelizations of sci-fi movies, and a standalone novel (The Gods Themselves).

After Sputnik he focused on science writing, believing that to be more widely useful.

He only returned to writing more Foundation, Robots, and Empire novels in the 1980s.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#124

Post by fl4regun »

wat10000 wrote: post #113
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.

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.

yeah that distinction is pretty important, and in general that guy I believe IS making the point - if you can not control it with guaranteed outcomes - you cannot control it.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#125

Post by BeetleB »

krapp wrote: post #121
BeetleB wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or even Star Trek to be honest. I don't know why Star Wars always gets passed off as "science fantasy" when it's a more grounded universe than Trek by far - space wizards notwithstanding (which Trek has plenty of.) Even in a lot of hard SF, a lot of the science is wonky if it falls outside of the author's special interest or area of expertise. Relevant to Asimov, the only reason robots have "positronic" brains in his…

As a Trekkie, fair point. I think Star Trek does fall into the "speculative fiction" category, but Star Wars doesn't. It's just "space opera".

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#127

Post by rationalist »

demurgos wrote: post #118
rationalist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aro…

Thank you, I just bought Outer Wilders: Archeologist Edition for Nintendo Switch, which appears to be the base game plus the expansion.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#128

Post by Froztnova »

jperoutek wrote: post #67
Arainach wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted Chiang is the greatest living science fiction short story writer I'm aware of, and ranks highly on my all time list.

I second this. Exhalation for some reason really resonates with me.

Exhalation is really excellent.

It's not really sci-fi but I also really enjoyed The Merchant And The Alchemist's Gate, and the one about the tower of babel, I forget the name at the moment.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#130

Post by Tallain »

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

This continues to be the most tiring response to any criticism of LLM output. It's pretty much guaranteed to show up at this point. I guess with similar enough input tokens, we're guaranteed the same output...
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