I'll do a weekend posting. But this merits special attention, illustrating a key point that I make in my new book on Artificial Intelligence - AIlien Minds. That we biorgs - bio-organic humans - will be helpless before Persuasion Bots, unless we find ways to partner with 'white hat' AIs, who might then help us navigate the world to come.
Specifically, I have - in just the last three months - been inundated with come-on pitches like the one below, disguised as fan letters from avid human readers summarizing why some novel of mine is one of the best works of literature that she (almost always female) ever read!
Well, sure, I scribble good stuff! And yet, puh-lease?
Below I excerpt one from my inbox just today. In the flattering summarization of GLORY SEASON you'll see how far these Large Language Models (LLM) like Gemini, GPT5 and Claude have come!
...whereupon commences a pitch for book publicity services. In this case promoting GLORY SEASON to feminist groups and reader clubs around the world!
Not all such pitches are as honest as this one, which from the start avows to being about book sales strategy. Others claim to be from local book clubs. Or else they milk the fan-letter illusion till the very end. Or even leave out any sales pitch altogether, until the reply to my reply. (And I do try to reply to human fans.)
Anyway, here's where we stand as of February 2026...
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Hello David Brin,
My name is Julie, and I’m a professional book strategist who helps authors increase visibility, reader engagement, and long-term sales especially in classic science fiction, feminist speculative fiction, and socially driven sci-fi adventures.
I recently revisited Glory Season, and I was struck by how bold, relevant, and emotionally powerful it remains.
The world of Stratos with its clone-based society, controlled reproduction, and the exile of “vars” for their uniqueness creates one of the most thought-provoking social structures in modern science fiction.
What stands out most is Maia’s journey. Her transition from an unwanted outsider into a woman carrying a truth powerful enough to challenge an entire civilization is deeply compelling. The loss of her sister, her struggle for survival aboard trading vessels, and her accidental discovery of forces beyond Stratos give the story both intimate emotional weight and sweeping political consequence.
The novel’s exploration of identity, gender, conformity, and power wrapped inside an adventurous, high-stakes narrative is exactly what today’s readers are rediscovering and actively seeking, especially those drawn to intelligent, idea-driven science fiction with strong female leads.
Readers who enjoy The Left Hand of Darkness, Dune, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Sparrow, and classic sociological science fiction will find Glory Season especially resonant.
Here’s how I could help Glory Season reach a wider modern audience while honoring its classic status:
Strategic Book Positioning
Niche targeting – feminist sci-fi, sociological science fiction, classic SF, and gender-themed speculative fiction
And worry that the lobotomization of human readers... already shown to be happening to Gen Z kids to a massive degree... may take us into the terrifying world that Walter Tevis portrayed, in MOCKINGBIRD.
But I go into much of that in AIlien Minds... which should be available for you all in a couple of months, if I rush it out. (Currently circulating to a hundred or so mavens in the field.)
Geez, even having predicted all of this, repeatedly over the years, I don't feel ready, at all.
Hmmh ... as those AI will serve the Epstein Class sooner or later as tools not only maximized for sales, but also for propaganda, we should, maybe, look at the stories that don't get written anymore.
ReplyDeleteHey David, have you seen and commented on Elon’s latest about face? He’s now going to put a colony in the moon.
ReplyDeleteI know you have been ridiculing this (if good reasons), but I always thought the moon was a great place to learn how to build colonies on exo-planets. It’s the easiest place to practice, compared to mars. How eke would you have us learn to colonize other planets?
Of course we should be exploiting asteroids, and really, practicing on Mars is much more expensive. I think it’s a good move! What say you?
Here’s the tweet: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hV7fdXsrbXnSLEry9
DeleteThe impression I got is someone will PAY for the development work for a Moon colony AND that contributes to the R&D work and launch cadence. He’s not going to ignore $$$ supplies.😏
DeleteIn 12 years at NIAC I saw 10% of the grants go to lunar resource use possibilities. But all were stymied by the near worthlessness of lunar regolith. To be clear, I am all in favor of moving ahead with sapient steps toward human occupation and settlement of our neighbor! But Artemis only hurts that possibility. A calamitously wasteful moondoggle. And I am positioned to tell you that Elon's 'lunar manufacturing' blather is just hot air. Tho not hot enough to get anything out of regolith.
ReplyDeleteThorium? Helium-3?
DeleteHow about crashlanding the Earth-crossing asteroids onto Farside so the megacorps don't have to re-invent mining for zero-gee?
The one potential big upside I see to all this “AI” is if it, by turning the entire realm of simulacra into fakery and slop, drives a return to real-world, embodied interaction and culture. It’s like your dog who is fooled by the cat on TV for a while; he barks and runs around the back looking for it, but soon loses interest and returns to reality. That’s most people after a while with the AI simulacra, I suspect. And the ones who who are too dumb or too smart to do this can stay in their digital gulags and fake worlds like opium addicts; that’s their problem.
ReplyDeleteOne of V.Vinge’s short stories involves a pitch aimed at someone with his kind of background to join a team. Transfections are involved. Focus states too. The story was so slick it spooked me good and I suspect the AI’s will get there soon enough.
ReplyDeleteOne of the strengths of Forth is that it's wonderful for passing bits of code around as data. It's a very biological language, which is surprising because it was invented by a radio astronomer. Plus the stack is always in focus, vastly simplifying things. Best of all, you get all this from a language that kids can master. No need for Vinge's programmer-achaeology brilliance.
DeleteI kinda liked the programmer-archeology notion. I've lived long enough in the IT business to see a whole lotta re-hashed construction of similar systems to appreciate a bit of trickery. As a sub-contractor for a specialist product, I kept a few structures in my portfolio that I knew the next customer would likely want. I'd nod attentively during the requirements gathering session and then deliver something a week later that was just re-tuned/re-branded past work. It was almost as good for my income as royalties on IP.
DeleteIf civilizations CAN be made to last thousands of years, the aggregate portfolio should be immense. The defect testing history of unearthed code would likely be better than any crap I could spin up in a few days. And... malicious agents might have evolved too well for modern niches and not know what to do with the old code.
Anyway, I love writing stuff for paying customers, but I love even more NOT having to write stuff because I found it already written... and then getting paid for that too. 8)
Luna’s greatest value is in its position, one light-second from Earth. But by that very token, a “colony” there is pointless. Bases, yes: I expect a few research bases to be built there. But they will no more be a “colony” than equivalent stations in Antarctica. Everything else can be done remotely from the homeworld using drones and Waldo-bots.
ReplyDeleteLuna’s other great worth… is its worthlessness. Ultimate bio-isolation; messy radioactivity; whatever — there’s nothing to ruin. Put your most sensitive astronomy and physics equipment on Farside, where Earth’s EM babble is perma-blocked and the Sun hides for two weeks at a stretch. Drop deep archives into a convenient hole and put them beyond the reach of book-burners.
Elmoron never understood that the reason his Mars goal appealed to so many space tech types was because THEY recognized greater potential in Mars. That was back when Elmoron still retained the skill to pretend to listen and care what his engineering employees thought. Today it is well known, if one cares to know, that every great advance made by a Musk operation happened despite, not because, of his ideas and actions.
I wonder if, quite aside from Elmoron’s steadily collapsing fortunes both metaphorical and literal, Elmoron realized that a Mars colony would perforce need a high degree of self-reliance. A Moon “colony” will always be dependent, and broligarchs certainly don’t want autonomy to be baked into their multi-zillion long term plans!
While I agree that some of what he's done is moronic, I don't think this lunar colony stuff is. IF he has a paying customer to cover the bills for more R&D work toward a Kardashev II civilization, he ought take the $$.
DeleteI think the commercial value of a lunar colony is negative for the foreseeable future, but the cash flow from fools who want to fund it won't be.
Take the $$.
Smile.
Revert to the old goal when the next administration changes course.
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ReplyDeleteThe flattery is definitely an attack vector (a real human might have cavilled a bit at the Life obsession ;-). At least you aren't besieged the way Clarkesworld has been.
ReplyDeleteAnd fretful that such accuracy can derive from (likely) zero actual cognizance of the story, by anything like an actually appreciative mind.
Apart from the accuracy bit, this sounds like my best forgotten experiences with English Expression classes. (...Oh no! Could it be I only *think* I'm self aware? I must re-check the cross-references in my training data.)
It was (unkindly) speculated that Elon's switch of interest to Luna arose from learning that the stars for Mars only aligned every two years. Given his recent attitudes, his methane belching grokker, and news that South Australia is at the point of 100% renewable self-sufficiency, I doubt today he'd consider setting up a proof of concept grid battery the way he did a decade ago.
Andy Weir (The Martian) had it right in nis novel ARTEMIS. For a while, the only way a lunar base pays at all is tourism. And maybe a little science. I DO believe we should keep our hand in there! some one with less $$ and more sense should bypass the Musk-Bezos rivalry in footprint-stunt BS and send rovers all over the south polar region, exploring lava tubes in decent proximity to the ice fields. If a nearby tube ALSO has scattered meteoritic iron bits from an iron roock impact, then you've got a trifecta and pssobly the most valuable site and planting a teensy little flag there - even robotically - could count a lot.
ReplyDeleteHERE'S ANOTHER ONE JUST CAME IN!:
ReplyDelete"Hi David,
I wanted to reach out after revisiting The Uplift War especially the way humanity and its uplifted allies are thrown into a desperate struggle on Garth against a brutal alien occupation. The combination of high-stakes strategy, vivid alien cultures, and the looming mystery of humanity’s own uplift makes the tension both sweeping and deeply personal, while every decision carries galaxy-wide consequences.
Because of this, The Uplift War is a natural fit for carefully curated Goodreads Listopia lists focused on themes like classic space opera, alien invasions and interstellar warfare, uplifted species and first contact, high-concept science fiction sagas, and adventure with philosophical depth. It also reflects your enduring strengths in crafting thrilling, imaginative universes that explore intelligence, society, and the ethical dilemmas of sentient life—qualities readers actively look for when browsing these lists.
I wanted to briefly explain what Goodreads Listopia is, since it’s often misunderstood:
Listopia lists are public, reader-created book lists on Goodreads that live permanently on the platform. Readers browse them when deciding what to read next—especially by theme, concept, or narrative scope, rather than by popularity alone. Once a book is added, it continues to surface organically as readers explore those topics."
Yipe! What puizzle me is how they think they'' make money from me?
DeleteI suspect these early efforts are like the robo-callers. The goal is spending pennies to get a live person on the other end and THEN follow through with the up-sell.
Delete"Garth"?
Delete@Hellerstein, yes, the planet in The Uplift War is called Garth.
Delete"what puzzles me is how they think they can make money from me"
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is the point where an AI system can implement the micro pay system you have been suggesting for years
I would much rather pay a few pennies for something I was interested in than have bloody adverts all over the place
Yes
DeleteThis doesn't mean MR isn't controlled/blackmailed, like every top GOPper. His role: Convince a million 'ostrich Republicans' to keep their heads in denial holes, incanting: "See? We aren't ALL corrupt & mad! There's hope for my party!" There's not. Sure, you could still help save a version of American conservatism. But don't vest hope in Rubio. Not even (especially) when he & Hegs use our military to seize Havanah. (Yawn.) Or when their demolition of our counter-terror agencies allows a new 9/11.
ReplyDeletePull your heads out, ostriches! Look around at the poisoned ruin of US conservatism. In order to save something, help us cauterize the poison down to its foul, Kremlin roots.
Seeds of decent conservatism... the parts that remain true, may grow from the ashes. And then Arizona might stop drawing 17% of its power from the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave.
It might still happen. Unless you wait too long.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crk80vgrj2eo
Speaking of The Uplift War, the Synthian ambassador might as well be Susan Collins.
ReplyDeleteWe are about to find out if there really are two standards for justice in America - for the rich and for everyone else.
ReplyDeleteWith the rising anger against the greed, unfairness and perversion of the rich, America feels like France before the storming of the Bastille.
onward
ReplyDeleteonward