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Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

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Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#31

Post by Joel_Mckay »

arcticfox wrote: post #8

I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.

In some stories, the outcome seems more plausible with current scientific hubris =3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth%2C_and_I_Must_...

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#32

Post by discardable_dan »

operatingthetan wrote: post #14
arcticfox wrote: post #8

I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.

Iain Banks still reigns supreme. Throw a couple LLMs in a chat together and they sound similar to his conversations between intelligences (particularly in Excession).

I do not want to read a bunch of gross torture porn, though.

Greg Egan is far more interesting and spares you that.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#34

Post by ivraatiems »

I'd really enjoy a return to classic space opera. I think a world where technologies like AI actually work out okay to some extent is a) closer to fiction than the alternative, and b) more interesting than another dystopia.

I'd enjoy a swashbuckling noblebright adventures-in-space thing way more than yet another treatise on Technology Bad right about now.

That said, I don't know that I think sci-fi as a genre is dying per se. There are a lot of really prominent and popular science fiction pieces coming out today. Shows/books like Black Mirror and The Expanse, for example.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#35

Post by robotresearcher »

arcticfox wrote: post #8

I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.

> the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting.

Opening them up again is a possible creative move. For example 'Dune', a far future where AIs and computers are banned and highly taboo because they caused too much trouble. Or there's alternate paths from the actual past such as steampunk in which we pushed mechanical engines further instead of switching (!) entirely to electronics.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#36

Post by reactordev »

mosura wrote: post #22
arcticfox wrote: post #8

I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.

Yeah, with who is doing space exploration being right up there. If it is us it isn’t going to be in our organic bodies, and this renders so much of it irrelevant. Wider society will likely pigeon hole their thinking on that next to concerns about the heat death of the universe, but for a lot of us it is disappointing. I did wonder about what it would be like embodied as a space probe encountering an alien that had al…

Literally the basis behind Eve-Online… you’re just a clone of consciousness of a citizen of New Eden.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#38

Post by daoboy »

Perhaps I'm getting the wrong impression, but it seems like this author is either ignorant of a lot of very successful contemporary scifi or is just taking a narrow view of the genre based on their own preferences.

AI and independent publishing certainly make it harder to sort the wheat from the chaff, but the ubiquity and convenience of aquiririg reading materials has never been better in all of human history.

I will never get caught up with all the scifi books I want to read, and nothing could make me happier.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#39

Post by WillAdams »

mosura wrote: post #22
arcticfox wrote: post #8

I have a hard time reading sci-fi these days because the rapid advances of AI have altered or closed off entirely a lot of the futures that I would find most interesting. I have a hard time seeing much other than computers in the future. Maybe stories like the Hyperion Cantos with the AIs in the TechnoCore largely fighting amongst themselves over the future of humanity are still intersting to me.

Yeah, with who is doing space exploration being right up there. If it is us it isn’t going to be in our organic bodies, and this renders so much of it irrelevant. Wider society will likely pigeon hole their thinking on that next to concerns about the heat death of the universe, but for a lot of us it is disappointing. I did wonder about what it would be like embodied as a space probe encountering an alien that had al…

There was a short story online a while back which covered that which was put forward as an answer to the Fermi Paradox.

Re: Science Fiction Is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

#40

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

zouhair wrote: post #26

I stopped reading Sci-Fi, it's just all dystopia and even when it's about a Utopia it's mostly about how it crumbles like with the Terra Ignota Series. We live in a dystopia, we need some utopian ideas, enough of the gloom and doom that ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy..

Read some Becky Chambers.
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