151–160 of 211 posts
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Blindsight's near future predictions are also looking more reasonable (aside from the vampires maybe)
I read Blindsight three times, and I’m still not sure what happened…
Even though it focuses primarily on the human agents in the story -- where the definition of humanity itself is fuzzy from the get-go -- it is set against a background of a vast, inscrutable, semi-virtual universe populated entirely by powerful artificial intelligences interacting amongst themselves, pursuing obscure goals that are largely beyond the grasp of mere humans.
And they're busy running their own economy where they wheel and deal to trade the commodity most precious of all to them: Energy! Sound familiar? ;-)
But it starts from a point that feels very real today. In the very first chapter, the protagonist forks a part of his own presumably cybernetic intellect to autonomously perform investigations in the background and report back to him.
That was an extremely cool but a very far-off, not-in-my-lifetime Sci-Fi fantasy idea when I read it.
But today I’ve already had Gemini Deep Research write investigative reports previously unfeasible for me due to time and expertise constraints, such as the possible timeline for robotics replacing all physical human labor given real world constraints: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LiahX2deGBoAb7kqIi5zNZm0... (spoiler alert, not for a long time yet due to extremely limited critical supply chain constraints.)
When I read that report, I realized we had quantum-leaped from Sci-Fi to reality in just a few years.
As such, beyond an engaging, if slightly disjointed, narrative arc, Accelerando gives you a framework to analyze current events and where they may lead.
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…
If you squint really hard, arguably maybe sort of in the future perhaps.
Openclaw seems to mostly end in dead end (but interesting) experiments and/or people losing weeks of work. That’s like saying “hoverboards” are basically flying cars.
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Does he invent things though? Probably more brokering than inventing, and as the "idea guy", whatever he does come up with he doesn't need to build because the world is so overflowing with AI and 3d printers elsewhere. With no need to build, does he spend time on design then? We can imagine, but IIRC, it's not shown, and mostly it is enough to just have an idea. Manfred's a smart guy and a worthy hero, but I think we…
I'm not a fan of actually-existing late-stage capitalism, frankly. What I want is Banksian fully automated luxury gay space communism. (You can quote me on that. I hate what tech has turned into.)
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This is nothing new though; industrialization and specialization have already caused basic survival skills to atrophy in most of the population. Take the case of a massive EMP taking out all computer systems. Gaps in supply chains and power failures would lead to millions (or billions) dying of starvation, dehydration, or exposure because they don’t know how to provide for themselves. People who’ve studied and practi…
Its irrelevant if you can provide for yourself. The ecosystem cannot support 9 billion Hunter gatherers - period. Subsistence level agriculture is also wildly inefficient and so again: the ecosystem cannot support it. A hunter-gatherer dropped into a metropolis where all the logistics has suddenly failed would be as dead as everybody else.
I didn’t suggest that it could, but the number that it can support is certainly more than zero. If that’s the only choice in a hypothetical scenario where global infrastructure goes kablooey, then people who can figure out how to provide for themselves will outlive those who can’t. From there it’s natural selection.
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The courts can almost entirely be bypassed by arbitration agreements. Look for AI arbitration sooner rather than later.
A couple of years ago, Steam made everyone accept a new ToS that required going through courts for disputes rather than arbitration. This was because some lawyers had realized that they could zerg rush arbitration with claims that Valve was obligated to deal with individually, and pay the fees to do so (IIRC). This effectively meant that the lawyers could extract settlements from Valve, because the alternative was ma…
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It's been so long since I've read it, I don't even remember weird sex stuff. Time for a re-read I guess
"weird" sex stuff is just a mild femdom. Totally side thing, IMO just a vehicle to add a layer of ambiguity to the MC.
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?