== Living with AI ==
How will humanity keep up with AI? Many Big Thinkers foresee AI outstripping organic humans and rendering us obsolete – at-best patronized-beloved old farts and at-worst disposable. There are some potential soft-landings, though:
1 – Merge with the machines, the dream of Ray Kurzweil and other cyber transcendentalists. There are many reasons to doubt the possibility, but none are yet decisive. So I portray it working very well, in a post-singularity society, in my story “Stones of Significance.”
2 – Augment organic brains and people to keep up. Of course my Uplift Universe is all about this, as are the “augments” in The Postman. And the “dittos” in Kiln People. And several stories like “Transition Generation” and “Chrysalis” in my collection Insistence of Vision. Those who believe our brains are “quantum” think that we have time, before cybernetic entities cross a threshold to high consciousness. We probably don’t.
3 – Emphasize the one thing that works well in humans – our ability to get more done in groups, and even (sometimes) show collective, positive-sum wisdom. In Futurism, Louis Rosenberg suggests that our chief hope will come from a developing "hive mind." Nor is he the first. After all, this is what Teilhard de Chardin wrote about, a century ago and it’s a recurring theme/prescription in the futures of both Isaac Aimov and Arthur C. Clarke, as well as Theodore Sturgeon and many others. (It really was cult-like, amid the despair following the atom bomb.)
In fact, I portray a “Macro Mind” in my novel EARTH, but it’s different than any of those. More loose and flexible and willing to accept the individuality of her human components, the way any sane person admits “I am many” and listens to the cacophony, within. Indeed, even looser — this kind of synergistic "mind" made up of hundreds of millions of autonomous citizens is the key underlying the successes of Enlightenment Civilization… and it is the thing targeted by its enemies to be destroyed. (If they succeed, we’re all doomed.)
Machine intelligence and AI are explored more fully in the recently released The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence by Amir Husain, as well as in Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barat.
Machine intelligence and AI are explored more fully in the recently released The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence by Amir Husain, as well as in Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barat.
4 - Raise them as our children. We already deal with creating new intelligences who are smarter than us! We know how to do it, such that only a very small percentage of human adolescents in each generation actually try to carry our their loud threats to “destroy all humans”! I portray this in EXISTENCE.
And yes, I’ve thought about this very problem, from a myriad angles, for a very long time. Here’s video of my talk on the future of A.I. to a packed house at IBM's World of Watson Congress - offering big perspectives on both artificial and human augmentation.
== Science Fiction cinema ==
YouTube's sorting algorithms can offer you an endless supply of "short science fiction films," such as the site DUST. Some are very well made, and it's good to see such verve and creativity. The special effects available to small groups of amateurs are amazing... though alas, there's almost never much in the area of plot. Very few have a decent story arc, and the obsessive reliance on gloomy post-apocalypse premises is downright tedious. What? you can't fish around for cool old SF stories?
Still, if you take into account Sturgeon's Law, it's a great trend! And some of these shorts really stand out.
I've mentioned one of my favorites: Einstein-Rosen by Olga Osorio. A lovely, whimsical and endearing little flick about two brothers, who take their genius for granted with child-like grace as they mess around with a fluke of physics.
Counterpart. Looks unusual. A fresh take on an old idea. I hope it's well done.
Fascinating -- Out There was a short-lived science fiction television program broadcast on Sundays at 6 on CBS Television from October 28, 1951 through January 13, 1952. It was one of the first science fiction anthology series, and one of the first shows to mix filmed special effects with "live" action. It only lasted twelve half-hour episodes before being cancelled. The awkward time slot may have led to its failure. In its short run, the program featured episodes adapted from stories by (and in some cases written by) authors including Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, John D. McDonald, Murray Leinster, Frank Belknap Long and Milton Lesser.
We gave the TV Time travel show TIMELESS a chance, watching 4 episodes from a disk. Alas, the premise and plot conceits are ancient. The actors are captivating and the dialogue okay. But the historical aspects -- actual, loving attention to historical detail and events? Horrible. Truly atrocious. Every episode was rife with howlers, sometimes almost every ten minutes. Just a wee bit of professionalism could have fixed that. What a pity.
== Science Fiction criticism ==
It was a privilege to have been one of Ursula Le Guin’s students, long ago. The ready acceptance of her brilliance by most in science fiction proved the genre was ahead of its time - even back in the 60s – and she was a leader keeping it on the cutting edge for many years, predicting many of the passionate causes of our rambunctious, ever-dynamic time. See this reflection on her life from the Los Angeles Times. In her final publication - No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters Le Guin offers personal reflections on life, aging and writing.
UCR Lit Prof. and science fiction legend Nalo Hopkinson explains “afrofuturism” in this excellent interview on CBC.
A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison, by Nat Segaloff offers an uncensored look at a unique individual, with amusing anecdotes, ongoing controversies and extensive - unfiltered - interviews with Ellison as well as numerous friends, colleagues and fellow authors.
For decades the Eaton Conference was the premier site for academic discussion of the boldest and most pertinent genre of literature. Now available for you science fiction scholars, a collection of the best papers - including one of my own.
Voices from beyond: In this article from The Washington Post, author Brad Meltzer asks if a person can leave a message inside his body before dying, a plot device the author used in his thriller, The Escape Artist. A bit of book promotion that stands alone as both fascinating and inspiring.
== and... ==
A sci-fi-ish disturbing video depicts near-future ubiquitous lethal autonomous weapons, or “slaughterbots.” Of course, as always, the makers of the film point to a dangerous tech-possible trend… and prescribe rules to limit it, never considering the question of how those rules will apply to the worst and most deviously secretive forces in the world.
