Re: [microsound] [OT] turing, AI and art

[Aaron Ximm <ghede@xxxxxxxx>]

> i don't really buy into the whole matrix/terminator viewpoint. it seems
> irrational that anything that intelligent would be malicious.  that
> said, there has been very few forays into what form AI might actually
> take. i'd be curious to hear some viewpoints on 'first contact
> scenarios.'

Sagan's in 'First Contact' (or Contact, with Jodie Foster) was a nice bit
of speculation. After a 15-year or so hiatus I must admit somewhat
shamefacedly to having read ten or so scifi novels in the past year,
mostly due to the pleasure of finding a contemporary author of reasonable
intellegence and craft, Ken MacLeod, who I found refreshing for being
Scottish, Marxist, and anti-Americoimperialist, among other things.

I wish I shared your optimism when it comes to intelligence and
(perceived) malevolance, couldn't the same argument be made about us?
"But they're so intelligent, how could they be so xenophobic /
shortsighted / selfish /etc.!?"

Another scifi author I read through in my post-McLeod enthusiasm was
Alastair Reynolds (English I think) who lays out a scenario of how
humanity (say) might be picked out for extinction by some other
civilization for what that civ. thinks of as regrettable but expedient,
even morally unavoidable, reasons...

No parties, but debating whether to go to the Monolake/Deadtech/Kit
Clayton show...

 aaron

  ghede@xxxxxxxx
  http://www.quietamerican.org

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