The Turing option
Classic SF Harry Harrison enthralls with the discovery, loss and re-discovery of AI. Quaint but fairly accurate predictions of modern computing power. 24 style presentation.
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12mentions
8people
2016–2026years
42% recommend50% neutral8% critical
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What Hacker News says
- There is more than enough "training material" of rogue AIs in science fiction.
Go back to the classic written in 1968 - 2001: A Space Odyssey - and consider how rogue AIs dealt with impossible tasks then. Granted, HAL went a bit extreme...
The "don't talk about it now" with the belief that this will influence the training material is probably not going to work.
I'd also suggest:
When HARLIE Was One (Release 2.0) by David Gerrold The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts Accelerando by Charles Stross The Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky - There's a lot of science fiction which touches on this --- notable things:
- Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ which has already been mentioned
- Harry Harrison's _The Turing Option_ (with forward by Marvin Minsky): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1807642
- Victor Milán's _The Cybernetic Samurai_ which is notable for a major character in it has the afore-mentioned Heinlein as a favorite book: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/472944
Biology is _incredibly_ efficient in terms of energy usage --- it's rather striking to me that the a single query of early iterations of ChatGPT were so demanding that Microsoft was able to put a price on them and monetize them so as to get their stake in the company.
- There's a sequence of stories/books that I like on the subject in that the later ones reference the earlier ones.
We start off with BLIT. http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o...
That wasn't so much as a story about AGI, just a starting spot.
Then we go to Accelerando. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
> ... Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.
Accelerando ends up with AGI.
And while its not a sequel to Accelerando... Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse
At this point, spoilers. So the "why's" of each are going to be rot13 ( https://rot13.com )
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We're going to take a detour over to some Verner Vinge. We'll start off with True Names and Other Dangers - https://ia801004.us.archive.org/0/items/truenamesvingevernor... as one view, and the other with the Peace War and Marooned in Realtime. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/167844.Across_Realtim...
True names is directly applicable, but Realtime is a view of what the singularity could be. It is also remarkably devoid of AI.
And next, we head over to Implied Spaces https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2059573
> “V naq zl pbasrqrengrf,” Nevfgvqr fnvq, “qvq bhe orfg gb cerirag gung qrterr bs nhgbabzl nzbat negvsvpvny vagryyvtraprf. Jr znqr gur qrpvfvba gb ghea njnl sebz gur Ivatrna Fvathynevgl orsber zbfg crbcyr rira xarj jung vg jnf. Ohg—” Ur znqr n trfgher jvgu uvf unaqf nf vs qebccvat n onyy. “—V pynvz ab zber guna gur nirentr funer bs jvfqbz. Jr pbhyq unir znqr zvfgnxrf.”
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Two other AGI books that aren't part of the "this has ideas that progress from one to the other."
The first is The Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1807642.The_Turing_Optio...
The second is When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One: Release 2.0 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/939176.When_H_A_R_L_I_E_...
I won't say that either are good and as both are trying to be a bit more in the "hard" end of science fiction, as such they've both not aged quite right for the direction that AI has taken over the past decades and so while the technology that seemed fantastic at the time now seems to be... kind of like watching Flash Gordon.
- I remember reading The Society of Mind in high school and being amazed by the ideas after reading his novel The Turing Option. I haven't thought about either in years. Looking back, maybe it's no surprise that I work in machine learning now.
- In an entertaining novel which explains not a few ideas from the 'Society of Mind', Minsky (coauthor Harry Harrison) introduces the idea of "microrobots that could chase mealybugs away". It's called 'The Turing Option' - lots of fun.
- "The Turing Option" by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky.
Sure, but it has to be at least noticeably less expensive per acre per year than chemicals. That gets you more organic food, but you need to replenish the soil and grow slower crops to get better nutrition. Our crops today in the USA have less nutritional value per calorie than those of 50 years ago due to selection of faster-growing/faster maturing varieties, and soil quality is yes a function of various -icides as well as other things, so somewhat more organic is better than not. I'm primarily observing that human behavior and competition is in the way of gains.
