Posted by jamesjyu 1 day ago
Whereas fantasy authors write stuff like "a sufficiently large pile of books becomes an intelligence" (Pratchett) and that's pretty much what's happened...
I don’t recall his robots having problems with creativity nor lying - precisely Daniel in the post-Foundation books was found to have developed a zeroth law which he used not only to lie but also to creatively get the universe back on Seldon’s plan after the Mule disrupted it. There were also stories in the robot/Spacer era pre-Foundation where robots lied precisely because they had to to save a human life or themselves. And the robots were creative - the human inspector those series followed relied on the creativity of his robot companion (Daniel) to help him.
But I thought in the lying thing Daneel was unusual in succeeding.
Liar!: robot can read minds due to manufacturing defect, realizes words can cause harm to humans and starts lying because of the first law.
Mirror image: robot lies to protect master’s reputation
Risk: perception of robot lying although in reality it followed instructions too literally
Little lost robot: weakened first law robot engages in malicious compliance.
So quite a few stories
I used to dismiss anything near-future involving any robot or AI you could just talk to. Now it exists. Unfathomable.
> I agree with Ursula Le Guin that “Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.” To me, the interesting parts of science fiction isn’t how accurately it extrapolates into the future, but rather, given a future circumstance, how might be?
You can read her views at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/342990/the-left-hand... .
"""Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying.
The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don’t recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It’s none of their business. All they’re trying to do is tell you what they’re like, and what you’re like—what’s going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look!"""
Le Guin's view, as I understand it, is that science fiction is about describing the present, even when it takes place in the future.
I spot-checked "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". It ranks a 2 for scaling, but according to the guidelines it should rank 0, because "A giant computer that merely stores more records doesn’t count for much. Neither does a magical threshold where the machine suddenly wakes up." and Mike's description is literally that he woke up when he reached that threshold.
It's on the first page. https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-DFY-783/page/8/mode/2up?q...
The growth in Mike's abilities is not from putting new hardware online, but because he matures like a person does, for example, https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-DFY-783/page/64/mode/2up?... , which also describe the even as "woke".
I don't see how one can read the book and miss that.
I also don't like the omission of Wyoh's contribution to Mike's training.
I mean look how most science fiction of the 1980s depicted the world of the future as dominated by Japan... Look at Robocop 3 :)
Computers were then just appearing or increasing in public discussion, along with fears that they'll make humans less human somehow: Like in this Computer Chronicles video about word processing from 1983 at 4:08: "Some writers are concerned that computer assistance may promote dry bland writing."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt0OoXluC8g
AI predictions were generally hostile to humanity: Terminator appeared in 1984, and the first Alien movie in 1979 had an antagonist android. 2001 A Space Odyssey with a disagreeable AI came out in 1968. All way before the real world had anything remotely close to today's AI: It was a reaction to the appearance of computers themselves.
On the other hand, Star Trek had optimistic AI like Data.
Humankind's own sentient creations leading to the ruin of humans is probably a trope in fiction since thousands of years, with golems or summoned demons etc.
Robbie the Robot (Forbidden Planet, 1956) "The Robot" (Lost in Space, 1965-1968). Twiki and Dr. Theopolis (Buck Rogers, 1979–1981), Zen[1] and Orac (Blake's 7, 1978-1981), R2-D2 and C3PO (Star Wars, 1977).
Computers were part of public discussion well before the 1980s.
Nixon's famous radio 1974 radio address was about the American right of privacy: "There are, of course, many facts which modern government must know in order to function. As a result, a vast store of personal data has been built up over the years. With the advent of the computer in the 1960's, this data gathering process has become a big business in the United States--over $20 billion a year--and the names of over 150 million Americans are now in computer banks scattered across the country." This lead to the Privacy Act of 1974.
The late 1960s reaction to how computers were used was to bomb and invade data centers. 1970 was "the year of the crisis", according to Computerworld in 1971. https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_december-30-19...
[1] "I have failed you. I am sorry." still brings tears to my eyes.
The general air is so pessimistic that we forget about those!
And don't forget Number 5! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_(1986_film)