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If you like optimistic Sci-Fi, I would recommend the Culture Series. It really changed me when I read it in university.
by aethrum 1y ago
If you like optimistic Sci-Fi, I would recommend the Culture Series. It really changed me when I read it in university.
- cousin_it 1y agoThe Culture is a world of AIs that are far better than humans at every task, and keep humans as basically pets out of sentimentality. I agree a lot of "nice" futures with AI will look like that, but the problem is that there are much more "nasty" futures than "nice". I don't see a path from AIs built for profit and national defense to a Culture-like future or any "nice" future at all. Or rather, there could be such a path but it would require AIs to be built for public interest already now.
- foobiekr 1y agoAM for example could plausibly be trained on 4chan and war footage.
- robertlagrant 1y ago> but the problem is that there are much more "nasty" futures than "nice". How do you know that?
- schnitzelstoat 1y agoIs there any optimistic sci-fi that doesn't have something like superpowerful perfect AI? It feels like such a thing is a bit of a cop-out as it removes all the problems that arise from human imperfections and yet our own history is that of an improving standard of living despite these imperfections.
- deeThrow94 1y agoKim Stanley Robinson is pretty good utopian sci fi. Some of his works are more plausible than others.
- deeThrow94 1y ago> The Culture is a world of AIs that are far better than humans at every task, and keep humans as basically pets out of sentimentality. The difference is that there's no need to build AIs with "motivation". Computers don't view us as anything right now, even if they're better at working with bits than us. What would change this in your mind? Naturally, we will anyway because that's a short-cut and we're not very imaginative. But any kind of AI that would want anything will have to be explicitly built by us.