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Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

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Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#141

Post by winrid »

My favorite Sci-Fi AI is probably in Larry Niven's World of Ptavvs, the "brain board". It's not covered in much depth but I like it because it's basically vibe coding GPT3.5 from 1966:

> He read, "Time to recharge battery:" followed by the spiral hieroglyph, the sign of infinity.

> Thud, said the brain. Kzanol read, "Re-estimate of trip time to Thrintun:" followed by a spiral.

At the brain board he typed: "Compute a course for any civilized planet, minimum trip time. Give trip time."

...

Thud! The screen said, "No solution."

Nonsense! The battery had a tremendous potential, even after a hyperspace jump it must still have enough energy to aim the ship at some civilized planet. Why would the brain...?

Then he understood. The ship had power, probably, to reach several worlds, but not to slow him down to the speed of any known world. Well, that was all right. In his stasis field Kzanol wouldn't care how hard he hit. He typed: "Do not consider decrease of velocity upon arrival. Plot course for any civilized planet. Minimize trip time."

The answer took only a few seconds. "Trip time to Awtprun 72 Thrintun years 100.48 days."

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#142

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #62
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…

I... Think you just spoiled me. Somehow I've managed to avoid all information about it so far, but now that you said it's like the last question... It's on me for procrastinating playing the game for so long, it was bound to happen.

IMO it's a good enough game that you could read the entire plot summary and it'd still be a good story & fun game to play. Much like how you can re-read an Agatha Christie novel & still enjoy it, the best stories are spoiler-proof because even when there's a "twist" that "twist" isn't as important to the quality as the rest of the work.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#143

Post by HiPhish »

jfaulken wrote: post #140
temp0826 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in South America a bit really showed me this. I think it's a cultural thing here but someone will always give you an answer, even if it's wrong, confidently . It was hard for me at first- I am usually the first person to say "I don't know" (often followed by "but let's slow down and find a good solution").

This was similar to my experience running a software team in India (I'm an American) a couple decades ago. I had to learn not to ask yes/no questions because the answer would always be yes.

It's a long-standing jodke that AI stands for "Actual Indians".

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#144

Post by fellowniusmonk »

bilsbie wrote: post #93

I tell my kids, there’s a God out there for everyone. The last question God might be for you If you’re super rational and are really into technology. Belief in God is like a supermarket. Once you decide to enter you’re probably going to find something that works for you.

The funny thing is this, let's say that an entity is outside of time, an entity that maps 1:1 in every practical way to the theists God.

Putting aside the bidirectional issues of non-interaction, what if mankind, or the universes collection of agents (if there are others and we interact with them) at some future point manages to create a supercomputer or entity in a substrate that exists outside of our time in the causal sense.

As long as we don't apocalypse ourselves or self destruct or get distracted from self preservation and miss the asteroid that ends us - we end up bringing this thing in our imagination to reality, just like all the other stuff we imagined and subsequently made.

Maybe God is real we just haven't made it yet.

This is all imagination of course, a fun thought about possibilities, humans tend to make the things they imagine and desire if it's actually possible.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#145

Post by sowbug »

sigalo wrote: post #107

Shouldn't the guy who runs this site be concerned about copyright infringement? Not sure to what extent the Asimov estate cracks down on unauthorized copies but he should be cautious.

It would be borderline insanity for the Asimov estate to enforce rights in a case like this. You couldn't buy better publicity than this thread.

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#146

Post by vhantz »

_diyar wrote: post #138
Forgeties79 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you have to talk to LLMs?

Another way to say the same thing: "to talk to most people in my life lol I don’t have to spend dozens if not hundreds of dollars a month"

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#147

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jasongill wrote: post #2

This is one of those stories, just like the SR-71 "ground speed check" story, that every single time I see it posted I just have to read the entire thing again. I love it.

The Gentle Seduction [1], too.

[1] https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Stiegler_GentleSeduction.pdf

Re: Isaac Asimov: The Last Question (1956)

#149

Post by gwerbin »

parineum wrote: post #90
gwerbin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, labor saving is only a good idea if the wealth created is distributed throughout society, not redirected to a small group of people.

And it almost always is through cheaper products to the end user.

Citation needed. Sometimes? Sure. Almost always? Questionable assertion.
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