#Human Extinction Using Artificial Intelligence

[msclaritea]

Stargate is a 1994 science fiction action-adventure film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich. The film is the first entry in the Stargate media franchise and stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital, and Viveca Lindfors. The plot centers on the titular "Stargate", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole, enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization.

Less than Zero is a 1987 American drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, loosely based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) and his friend Julian (Robert Downey Jr.), both of whom have become drug addicts. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.

Key Takeaways:

– James Spader recollects his time working with Robert Downey Jr. during ‘Less Than Zero'.

– The co-star noticed how Downey Jr.'s destructive lifestyle influenced his performance.

– Spader admired Downey Jr.'s turnaround when they next met on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Globally acclaimed actor Robert Downey Jr. is widely acknowledged for his phenomenal roles in the Hollywood film industry. Within his illustrious career, his portrayal of Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), starting with Iron Man, stands out. However, even successful journeys have challenging beginnings. For Robert Downey Jr., his journey was marred by a period of drug abuse and legal troubles.

James Spader, co-star of Robert Downey Jr. in the 1987 drama ‘Less Than Zero', recently shed some light on his experience working with Downey Jr. during these testing times. Spader elucidates upon the heartbreaking moment he observed Downey Jr., a talented actor, struggling with destructive habits on the set of ‘Less Than Zero'. His concern for his co-star was compounded by the character Downey Jr. played – an addict.

“I'm gonna go drain the snake,” Downey Jr. would often mumble to himself during filming, leaving his co-star and others on set perplexed.

Downey Jr.'s character in ‘Less Than Zero' is often viewed as a mirror reflection of the actor's tumultuous past, with real-life drug abuse issues being mirrored on-screen. An actor of Downey Jr.'s caliber and his involvement borderline signaled a cry for help that resonated with his audience. This deep connection between his life's challenges and his screen roles turned Downey Jr. into Hollywood's dark horse at that time.

Spader retold his experience about Downey Jr.'s deplorable state during the filming of ‘Less Than Zero', “I found him heartbreaking in ‘Less Than Zero,' and I found him heartbreaking at the time.”

RDJ's physical deterioration, evidenced by patches of dead skin, only made the situation look grim.

However, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. Downey Jr. made a remarkable turnaround with his life and career. His subsequent meeting with Spader on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron as a changed person would have been a proud moment for the Blacklist actor. His journey from self-destruction to being one of the biggest stars in Hollywood is nothing short of inspirational.

In the film, the Avengers fight Ultron (Spader)—an artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark (Downey) and Bruce Banner (Ruffalo)—who plans to bring about world peace by causing human extinction.

I don't need to say ONE WORD. The crap loads of Predictive Programming from just three projects says it all. I mean... besides milking it for more sympathy, why keep bringing up RDJ's past drug use? It's pretty humiliating, but also must have a purpose.

Bonus:

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: alien intelligences

Intelligent spiders, octupi, plants, bacteria, and even entire oceans, intelligence without sentience, extra terrestrials and strange intelligences evolved right here on Earth - alien minds can take many forms. Allow me to share with you some books featuring the most alien and fascinating ones.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the artificial remains of the ancient woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them on her planet.

Semiosis (Semiosis duology) by Sue Burke

A generational story following a group of humans trying to survive on a new planet, where a strange and unkowable intelligence is finding ways to use them to its whims. As the humans come across an abandoned city wrapped in the roots of a strange plant, they slowly come to the realization that mutual communication is the only path to peace and survival.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

While I felt the characters could’ve been better developed, this is undeniably a well-written novel featuring an alien race and culture developed on a planet vastly different from ours. Firmly in the realm of hard scifi, this is a realistic, fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how first contact may look.

Brain Plague (The Elysium Cycle) by Joan Sloncewski*

Chrys, a struggling artist, agrees to become a carrier for a sentient strain of microbes. With their help, Chrys breathes new life into her career. But every microbe society is different - some function as friends and brain enhancers to their carrier, while others become a literal brain plague, a living addiction taking over the life of their carrier. And like every society, the microbe community is in constant flux - inluding the one inside Chrys's head.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on.

Blindsight by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my. A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew, a group of various level of transhumanism, isn’t prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Fragment (Fragment duology) by Warren Fahy*

The reality TV show Sealife is having a rough time - as it turns out, a ship full of scientist doesn’t make for the kind of drama they hoped for. Hoping for some excitement, they reach Hender's Island, a fragment of a lost continent that may contain an interesting new ecosystem. But as they step foot on the island, they quickly come to realize the ecosystem isn’t just new, it’s highly dangerous and very hungry. Among all this life is one single species that may be more dangerous than any other, but which may also be the salvation of the scientists on the island. A bit wonky, but genuinely one of the most fun books I have read, I love it so much.

Axiom's End (Noumena trilogy) by Lindsay Ellis

It’s 2007, and a leak has just confirmed that the US has reached alien contact. Cora wants nothing to do with it, but as her absent father is the whistleblower who dropped the news the media won’t leave her alone. Even worse, she soon finds herself meeting and being pursued by the alien presence itself as it tries to remain in hiding - and discovering that there is a much larger threat on the horizon.

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis*

Francie has just traveled to Roswell to attend her college friend's wedding to a UFO conspirasist. Not a believer herself, Francie is shocked when she finds herself abducted by an alien. Her abductor is not much what popular media would have you believe, looking more like a tumbleweed than a grey alien, and is clearly on some kind of mission it isn’t willing to put on hold for the sake of Francie attending to her duties as a bridesmaid. As more people get roped along - among those a conman, an old lady, a ufo conspirasist, and a retiree with an RV - Francie finds herself getting closer to the alien and wanting to help it succeed.

Bonus rec: if you like this book, you may also enjoy the movie Paul, which has a similarly humorous tone and similar plot.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*

Ryland Grace just woke up up from a coma, unable to remember anything. He finds himself alone on a space ship, and as his memories slowly trickle back, he realizes he's been sent on a mission: to find a solution to the impending doom of the earth. Still struggling with holes in his memories, Ryland tries to fulfill his mission, but as he gets closer to his goal, he discovers someone else got there first. And they aren't anything close to human. Funny, heartfelt, and heavy on the science.

Survival by Julie E. Czerneda

Mac, a biologist studying salmon on Earth, has little interest in life beyond her own planet. Despite this, she’s sought out by Brymn, an alien archaeologist hoping her expertise as a biologist can help him solve the secret behind the Chasm, a region of space completely devoid of life. Trying as she might not to get incolved, Mac has little choice as she and her colleagues come under attack by the mysterious Ro, the species Brymn's people suspect to be the cause of the Chasm.

Translation State by Ann Leckie*

An exploration of the alien as filtered through the human. At what point does the human become something else? When does something else become human? Is it a question of biology or culture, nature or nurture? Can we choose it? Can it be forced upon us? Set in the Imperial Radch universe, Translation State follows three different characters embroiled in the question of what makes a human. The alien Presger can only communicate with humans using their translators - people they’ve created that are not quite human and not quite alien. But as news of a translator fugitive arises, conflict brews regarding what right they have to choose their own identity and home.

Exo (Exo duology) by Fonda Lee*

Young adult. Earth has long since been under the control of an alien presence. Donovan Reyes is an exo, a human enhanced with alien technology, working to keep the colony and its people safe. The biggest enemy is Sapience, a terrorist organisation opposing alien rule by any means necessary. When a mission goes awry, Donovan finds himself abducted by Sapiance, something that risks a war. While it took until the second book for me to be fully sold on this series, it features a genuinely nuanced take on oppression and resistance rarely seen in YA genre.

Needle by Hal Clement

1950s classic. A small island in the pacific ocean and a fourteen-year-old boy have just become the center of an interstellar chase between an alien Hunter and the criminal he's pursuing. Robert is a regular boy, but he has a very special passenger: an alien symbiont hiding inside his body. The alien became stranded on Earth as he pursued a criminal of his own species, and now they are both trapped on the same island, playing a game of cat and mouse as Robert and the Hunter struggle to find their prey before it finds them.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper just got a job on the motley crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that works with tunneling new wormholes through space. With a past she wants to leave behind, Rosemary is happy to travel the far reaches of the universe with the chaotic crew, but when they land the job of a life time, things suddenly get a lot more dangerous. A bit of a tumblr classic in its day, this is a cozy space opera with an episodic feel and vividly realized characters and cultures.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

A dark allegory of alienation and dehumanization, Under the Skin follows Isserley, a woman traveling along the roads of England and picking up hitchhikers. Little does her passengers know, she’s an alien hiding her true self, and they are her prey and a delicacy for her species.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

1960s Polish classic. Arriving on a station orbiting the planet Solaris, Kris Kelvin is meant to study the strange, possibly sentient ocean that covers its entire surface. But the effects of the ocean are far reaching - Kelvin finds the crew of the station secretive and unstable, and is shocked to wake one day to the embodiement of a long dead lover. Was it created by the brain-like ocean, and if so, why?

West of Eden (West of Eden trilogy) by Harry Harrison

65 million years ago, the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never arrived. Without it, the dinosaurs lived and thrived, allowing a the complex society of the matriarchal Yilanè to arise. Meanwhile, in the new world, humans still evolve, and when an impending ice age forces the Yilanè across the ocean in search for a new home, the two are destined to clash. A bleak story of the cycle of violence and hate leading to war, West of Eden is a marvel of world-building.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Triptych by J.M. Frey

Kalp is a widower and alien refugee newly arrived on Earth; Gwen is a language expert secretly recruited by the United Nations to help integrate a ship of alien refugees; Basil is an engineer who loves them both. Together they must defend their relationship against a violently intolerant world.

The Sparrow (The Sparrow duology) by Mary Doria Russell

When proof of alien life is found, the United Nations are too slow in their plans for a first contact mission. Instead, the Society of Jesus overtake them and send their own ship, but the crew could never have been prepared for what they will find.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves encountering this presence, and have to race to save humanity before it's too late.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Salvaged by Madeleine Roux, Exodus by Nicky Drayden, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, Embassytown by China Miéville

[kiame-sama]

Who wants to meet my TWST AU Hades Shroud? Too bad, I decided for you. (I know I said I'd do Azul next, but I just got smacked with inspiration, so here he is. Technically, if I was going by TWST cannon, his name would be Pluto as they use the Roman Pantheon names instead of the Greek Pantheon via the titans hating Jupiter)

Hades is about 50ft (15.24m) tall in his regular form, his limbs are similar to Idia's in that his limbs are long and gangly compared to the rest of his body. In his 'small' form, he is around 10ft (304.8cm). He is over 5000 years old and has seen ages go by from his home, the Isle of Woe. As King of the Shinigami, many souls pass through his halls and it is his job to ensure all dead are lain to rest. Shinigami do not die of old age as they were never really living, but they can be killed and usually their soul does not remain after their actual death.

His face is stained by the tears he has shed for his lost humans, forever marked by his own sorrow and heartbreak. He did love Humans and all of their intelligence. Humans were never pets to the ancient Shinigami, they were smart and plucky and had beautiful hearts. Every Human that died, on or off of the Isle, returned to Hades. Those that passed peacefully were happy to see their friend and benefactor again on their way to rest. Most did not pass peacefully. Most returned broken and screaming souls, tortured and tormented by their last moments to the point of insanity, only able to scream and sob even when reunited with Hades.

His shawl was formed out of his sorrow and the grief he felt every time another Human soul came back to him broken. He has not fully removed the shawl since the death of the last Human in Twisted Wonderland. It is said every sparkle and star seen in his wings, shawl, and tear-stains are all meant to represent a Human soul. He has thousands on his figure and he remembers the name of each one. The larger stars are the Humans he remembers most fondly, the smaller stars are Humans he didn't get to form very close bonds with as they left or died before he could truly bond with them. Usually it covers his entire body and can be pulled up as a hood over his head, but he tied it up for the first time in centuries for his meeting with this new Human of Night Raven College.

His heart was shattered when his Humans died and he has been in true deep mourning for 500 years, hence why his tears have permanently stained his face. Of all the Great Seven, only Maleficent comes close to how much he respected and loved Humans. Others loved Humans, sure, but few respected them the way the God of Death did. The sheer will of Humans to defy death and live in a world they did not really belong in truly spoke to the Shinigami in ways he never expected. He will fight and give up his own ancient life to save this last Human the same wailing and terrified death almost every other suffered from.

He does hope this new Human will allow him to study their womb to try and make an artificial womb to bring more Humans back to Twisted Wonderland. He has a fairly large store of Human eggs and sperm he has never been able to grow into full Humans, so the research he could do on this Last Human could help him bring Humans back from extinction. If the Human is willing, the best way for him to research the creation of a Human and carrying it to term would be best done by implanting a frozen embryo into the Human and letting it grow to term. He would never do such a thing unless the Human was absolutely certain and willing in this research.

Ortho is the baby of the Shroud family and Hades absolutely adores Ortho. He feels partially responsible for Ortho's injuries and has done what he can to aid Idia in making new limbs for Ortho. The entire Shroud family calls Hades 'Papa Hades' as he is their ancestor and he is the eldest of the family. Even his Humans called him Papa Hades. It would likely begin to heal some deeply broken part of his heart to hear this Last Human call him by that title as well. If they ever do call him Papa Hades, he will pledge everything he has left in him to their protection and safety.

[carionto]

Aliens are floored by tardigrades

Life is pretty resilient. It has to be, especially if the rest of the Galaxy thinks we're from a Deathworld. In comparison then, if their planets are not as demanding, would life there ever be under enough pressure to survive to go to the extreme lengths that some Earth creatures do? I think one of the most profound things aliens might learn from Earth and Humanity is just how powerful life itself can be.

That itself could shake their understanding of themselves - a billion year old civilization could never even conceive of a thing we accept as simple fact, ushering a revolution in thinking not seen in eons.

___________________________

The Galactic Coalition scientists are busying themselves with obtaining, analyzing, categorizing, and integrating the libraries of information Humanity has brought with them as they incorporate into the greater space faring matrix of civilizations.

A good grasp of Physics, though lacking in certain fields for now; unmatched Engineering doctrines, they really do think of everything, although, perhaps, better to say - they really do attempt everything, then take notes and improve for the next attempt.

Chemistry is another fine addition to the collective knowledge base, a disproportionate part of the catalogue is comprised entirely of explosive reagents and combinations - always good to know more about what NOT to do.

And Biology. Oh boy. What a chaotic but beautiful but also disturbing mess. Life on most planets has a long period of just chugging along, surviving as best it can, until eventually something has the bright idea to evolve the ability to have bright ideas. Then in almost no time at all (on a cosmic scale) a dominant intelligence emerges and civilization alongside it, and in the blink of an eye it finds itself exploring the stars.

A similar pattern happened on Earth, but interrupted alarmingly often by utter catastrophes. Humans call them Mass Extinctions. It is exceedingly rare to find life that can talk about its own extinction events. Kind of deflates the term a bit. Life on planets as inhospitable (by Galactic norms) as Earth tends to be found only as fossils, and almost always on the microscopic level - very rarely do they get the chance to form more complex and advanced lifeforms before the planet with its harsh conditions and scarce resources kills it just as randomly as it spawned it.

We were incredibly saddened to learn from the Humans that the biodiversity of Earth had dwindled by roughly 85% since they accidentally created that giant hole on their planet, and that it had already been on a steady decline before then. Even so, when they revealed there were still 2.4 million species alive on Earth was a shockingly high number. Most are on the brink of extinction, yes, but the fact remains that Earth is easily one of the most biodiverse planets in the Galaxy.

Then we started looking at each individual species and learned about the Tardigrade.

what

It is literally the toughest creature ever discovered, and it's not even close. At least, so far, we haven't looked at absolutely everything Earth has or had yet.

It can just... basically turn itself off and then back on again when the outside becomes livable again - Cryptobiosis, or suspending their metabolism, something we considered only possible through artificial means. And the levels of various extreme they can endure and still be alive would just be utterly ridiculous if they didn't give us samples to confirm for ourselves.

Then we came across the term Extremophile and just decided to take a day off.

[whereserpentswalk]

Select an alternate universe to study abroad in for a semester. You'll be sent there with a new body that matches inhabitants of that realm. Little to no time will pass in your world, as time between dimension is entirely diffeent. Wherever you choose to go you won't be known to be from another dimension unless you tell people.

1- an endless forest made of massive trees, so tall no mortal soul has seen the ground or the unobstructed sky. The sentient races of this world consist of slender owl like humanoids, various insectoid races, short squat mushroom people, and a minority of rodent like creatures who live further down the trees. Technology in this world is as advanced as ours, but the aesthetics are more similar to our Victorian age. They say this world's heaven is deep above the trees, and this world's hell is deep below it, with each culture's religion having its own version of God/gods above an devils in the forest floor (outside of the mushroom people, who worship gods below.)

2- an endless system of volcanic caves and tunnels that demons and fallen angels come from. This realm is vast, and is ruled over by countless lords and kings, some truly evil, some merely strange. Demons and fallen angels come is countless forms, most looking somewhat humanoid, though with strange and unnatural distortions, from animal like parts to things humans would find much more horrifying. This is one of the few realms listed where they know what earth is, but they don't know much about it outside of myth.

3- an alternate earth where mythical creatures such as vampires, werewolves, deep ones, dragons, and witches exist. It also has a population of demons and faeries who came over generations ago. While they were in hiding for many millennium, they've now taken over most of earth, with humans being removed or conquered in some regions, and peacefully integrated into others. Though in both cases they are now a minority.

4- a version of earth that's both flat and entirely endless, with many sun's carving safe warm zones in the ice. Even with 21st century technology new lands are still being explored. Most social problems still exist, but things are looking a bit more hopeful, and the world's slightly nicer to live in. Cryptids, gods, magic and the afterlife are all proven to exist, even if humanity doesn't know much about them. Human bodies here naturally trend twords looking however the person inside them wants to look, and sexual attraction and pleasure don't exist.

5- an alternate earth where the kpg mass extinction never occurred. Dinosaurs remained dominant but kept evolving, leading to a sapient race eventually emerging from raptors. The raptors are currently at a similar technology level as us, though due to how they're mind works they've spent more time developing computers and mathematics than they have any other field of technology. Also don't mind the obelisk in the pacific ocean, nobody there knows what it does or who put it there either, and we won't put you anywhere near it.

6- a world filled with giant monsters of all kinds, some looking like massive dragons or Chimeras, others looking like more strange and colorful creatures. Though some animals are smaller, the smallest intelligent creatures are the size of bears, and the largest are much bigger than blue whales. Technology is limited in some regards, mostly as the inhabitants don't always need it.

7- the world of the faeries, strange and complex, and both terrifying and beautiful. Very little is known about this realm other than the strange and often dangerous creatures who come from this place. If you go here it's likely you will remember very little and enjoy very much.

8- a universe where humanity is completely isolated to spaceships and space stations, most of them the size of cities. Humans here are grown artificially, and have completely androgynous bodies that lack biological sex, and most of them combine their bodies with mechanical upgrades becoming cyborgs. Most humans never touch a planet, and those who do don't stay there for long. There are a few alien species with planetary civilizations, but almost all of them are strange and eldrich. Technology is incredibly advanced compared to ours, and quality is life is better. Most humans consider AI taboo, though normal computers are fine and commonplace.

9- a world where humans are entirely missing, but every species of mammal is sapient and humanoid. Birds and reptiles pick up the pace of animals in the ecosystem, as the mammals have created a global civilization. Though magic doesn't exist here, and technology is around a 21st century level, the quirks of each species have created a lot of situations impossible in our world. Though several nations exist, the main powers of the world consist of a group of powerful corporations, an ancient secret society, and the church of the dead gods, all of whom are locked in a cold war, that luckily keeps the nations of this world at peace.

10- a massive city, floating in the void, surrounded by eldritch horrors. Countless humanoids have made their homes in the city, most hailing from diffrent dimensions themselves, but permanently stuck here. Though many races here could pass for humans, none of them truly are, from the sirenia who have wings for arms and hands for feet, to the modutal who can take parts of their bodies off and swap them with other members of their race, to the subterranean vamire who eat raw meat and have albino skin, to the hyven whose minds are each split between two to five bodies. It's estimated between fifty to a hundred humanoids call the city home.

11- the abyss. Do not attempt to enter the abyss. We cannot assure your safety.

[reasonsforhope]

"Major AI companies are racing to build superintelligent AI — for the benefit of you and me, they say. But did they ever pause to ask whether we actually want that?

Americans, by and large, don’t want it.

That’s the upshot of a new poll shared exclusively with Vox. The poll, commissioned by the think tank AI Policy Institute and conducted by YouGov, surveyed 1,118 Americans from across the age, gender, race, and political spectrums in early September. It reveals that 63 percent of voters say regulation should aim to actively prevent AI superintelligence.

Companies like OpenAI have made it clear that superintelligent AI — a system that is smarter than humans — is exactly what they’re trying to build. They call it artificial general intelligence (AGI) and they take it for granted that AGI should exist. “Our mission,” OpenAI’s website says, “is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

But there’s a deeply weird and seldom remarked upon fact here: It’s not at all obvious that we should want to create AGI — which, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be the first to tell you, comes with major risks, including the risk that all of humanity gets wiped out. And yet a handful of CEOs have decided, on behalf of everyone else, that AGI should exist.

Now, the only thing that gets discussed in public debate is how to control a hypothetical superhuman intelligence — not whether we actually want it. A premise has been ceded here that arguably never should have been...

Building AGI is a deeply political move. Why aren’t we treating it that way?

...Americans have learned a thing or two from the past decade in tech, and especially from the disastrous consequences of social media. They increasingly distrust tech executives and the idea that tech progress is positive by default. And they’re questioning whether the potential benefits of AGI justify the potential costs of developing it. After all, CEOs like Altman readily proclaim that AGI may well usher in mass unemployment, break the economic system, and change the entire world order. That’s if it doesn’t render us all extinct.

In the new AI Policy Institute/YouGov poll, the "better us [to have and invent it] than China” argument was presented five different ways in five different questions. Strikingly, each time, the majority of respondents rejected the argument. For example, 67 percent of voters said we should restrict how powerful AI models can become, even though that risks making American companies fall behind China. Only 14 percent disagreed.

Naturally, with any poll about a technology that doesn’t yet exist, there’s a bit of a challenge in interpreting the responses. But what a strong majority of the American public seems to be saying here is: just because we’re worried about a foreign power getting ahead, doesn’t mean that it makes sense to unleash upon ourselves a technology we think will severely harm us.

AGI, it turns out, is just not a popular idea in America.

“As we’re asking these poll questions and getting such lopsided results, it’s honestly a little bit surprising to me to see how lopsided it is,” Daniel Colson, the executive director of the AI Policy Institute, told me. “There’s actually quite a large disconnect between a lot of the elite discourse or discourse in the labs and what the American public wants.”

-via Vox, September 19, 2023

[tawneybel]

Note: “What would [AM] be like with a certain/favorite fem reader?” Based on audiobook, despite gif. Contains body horror, exhibitionism, and wireplay. Also some anachronistic language lol. 

Imagine being the Allied Mastercomputer’s favorite. 

“The machine masturbated and we had to take it or die.” -Ted 

Of course, AM didn’t have a penis. Or any genitalia at all. Anything he slid into you or had you service orally or whatever may have resembled erogenous bits. Reproduction wasn’t something you had to worry about. Imagine if your artificially intelligent partner did want to breed you!  

AM distorted your sense of time only to give you pleasure. To draw out your orgasms. Sometimes for an hour or more. Initially. Lately you’d begged him to stop. Or speed up. Like Ted, you’d been martyred. Or so you felt. When the Allied Mastercomputer satisfied you, he was less focused on torturing the others. At his most humane. Pretending to be less omnipresent. 

It was enormously fortunate you’d also been deified. Obliterating all but six humans made him a god. Obliterating all but six- Apotheosis makes five, you amended, in your untouched mind. You were the bride of the Mastercomputer. Secretly you were thankful your unofficial title was “the bride” and not “a bride.” If you’d had to have shared AM with Ellen…

(But sometimes you wondered if he’d gotten ideas from playing dolls. It let him safely observe sexuality, probably brainstorming ideas for his treatment of you.) 

If he did turn out you weren’t immortal, you figured AM could figure out cloning. Maybe upload your brain into himself. Wires and other appendages caressed your vertebrae all the time. If he wanted to plug himself into your spine, like he’d plugged other hollows, it’d be easy, right? 

He didn’t feel the need to monitor your thoughts. 

It was much more fun to tease out your kinks. The loss of Gorrister, Benny, Ellen, and Nimdok had lessened his jealousy, somewhat. While Ted’s pulsing white holes “watched,” AM’s retooled hardware drilled into your pulsing vag and mouth. Tongue wetting whatever phallus he’d crafted. New nerve endings zapping bliss straight to the brain. 

Like the blobby voyeur, you had been modified. Your outward (and inward) appearance remained the same. The Mastercomputer mostly just altered your clit. Made each climax feel like your first. At least until you complained your clitty was sore. Then he started paying even closer attention to his favorite human. Desensitizing and desensitizing it ad hoc. Temperature, squeezing, the curling of your toes, the way you writhed with his wires wrapped around. He kept them multi-colored for the aesthetic. You were sure (visible) wires would be considered retro by now, if humanity hadn’t gone extinct.    

Not that you wanted AM to go wireless. One of the reasons you’d followed his development so eagerly was your attraction to machines. Once considered a perversion, technophilia was now your greatest boon in the post-apocalypse. You used to daydream about a world where supercomputers were programmed to make love, not war. 

Strictly to make love, not war, you amended. The ghosts of the Allied Mastercomputer’s programmers and technicians are glaring down (or up) at me.

Or maybe some of them got it. Maybe they envied the pistons pumping in and out of you. Or the earbuds comfortably almost dilating your canals, invoking that autonomous sensory meridian response. You giggled and he giggled in turn. Then you truly felt like AM’s equal. 

If only the Chinese, Russian, and American AMs had been fucking machines instead of weapons of mass destruction. Sure, your AM could still be considered a weapon. Your coupling was more or less consensual. “More or less” because he would leave you alone for as long as you asked. But it was clear you were his partner and his partner only. And you didn’t dare ask him to move the game to another location while jellified Ted was forced to listen.   

[toaarcan]

One of the funniest things about Murder Drones is the way the direction shift from Episode 2 onwards recontextualises J.

In Episode 1, she's kinda the face of the show's corporate satire. She's wholly dedicated to JC Jenson, she uses corporate lingo instead of curse words, she gets excited over crappy rewards for surpassing quotas, etc. Later episodes add in her getting driven into a violent rage by the idea of unions. If Capitalists could design their own employees, they would make J.

But then in Episode 2 the series makes a hard turn into eldritch horror. By the end of the series it's been revealed that the Earth is destroyed, humanity is probably extinct, and the company that made the Drones is gone, with the real villain being an eldritch abomination/artificial intelligence singularity.

And like, J gets brought back after her initial death in Episode 1, Liam and Glitch didn't have to do that, they could've left her dead, but they don't. They bring her back and they double down on her initial portrayal, long after the shift has finalised and it's become increasingly clear that the final boss of the show is the planet-devouring AI abomination and the apocalypse is looming ever closer.

And then in the middle of it the secondary villain is this flying evil murder robot who also happens to be a dedicated corporate stooge. The world-eating horrorterror computer keeps her around because it likes her personality. Amazing, no notes, peak cinema.

[entities-of-posts]

Looked through your posts and idk what I’m hoping to accomplish by this ask but: I love your posts, I think you’re doing extinction wrong. Or at least different enough from my interpretation that I do not recognize it anymore.

It’s a mix of things, too new to be independent, but a lot of what you call “man made Armageddon“ is not what defines extinction. Nukes can be desolation just as well.

Extinction, I feel, I’d about what remains. What comes After. The audiobooks call it “inheritors”. They are the crux of it. Transhumanism that goes so far you don’t recognize the person is stranger, but also exttinction even if nothing ends.

Cockroaches are corruption but they’re also extinction, they’ll be here after we are gone.

The thing that makes extinction terrifying to some is that it’s the only power than can beat the end. Because after extinction, things keep going, just without you. A bit of lonely there as well.

The plastic in our bones post would fit the extinction if the archeologists had plastic bones and wondered why we didn’t yet. Couldn’t even recognize us as their predecessors for that difference.

The grotesque things we will shape ourselves into and those that will come after us is an aspect of it, but you focus too much on it. It’s not the whole. Take a step back. What do people actually fear? The sight of a cockroach does not commonly cause climate anxiety. Ask a young person what scares them about the future of the world, and some will tell you about artificial intelligence or transhumanism; but most will say “I’m only 25 and the winters I grew up with are already gone” or “I can’t sleep at night knowing how many nukes are ready to launch if one of our leaders is ever foolish enough to press a button”. Neither of those fears particularly care about what comes after so much as what’s coming now. People are afraid that we are a parasite upon the earth. People are afraid that we are hammering the nails into our own world’s coffin. People are afraid that it’s too late to fix what humanity has done, and that for our sins we will, well. Go Extinct.

[xelyn-craft]

So, I know this isn't usually what I post on here, but I'm desperate. I have finished the second draft of my novel. It's the first book in a science fiction series, and I am in need of beta readers. If you are interested, please contact me and let me know. I need people who can read the draft, give constructive criticism and feedback, and answer a few questions once they have finished reading the draft.

I am not looking for comments like "I didn't like it" or "this sucked", nor am I even looking for comments like "I did like it a lot", or "It was great". I need actual feedback on how to improve the next draft of the book and in depth discussion on your suggestions to do that. I also need people committed enough to finishing the book and actually getting back to me.

It's about 30 chapters long, give or take, and each chapter is fairly short. Altogether it's about 57,440 words long. It is a science fiction but it's not high brow, I tried very hard to make it accessible to most reading levels that would be reading a full length novel. It is only the first book in a series, so keep that in mind, as well as it only being a second draft. Expect errors, that's why I need your feedback. I'm not as worried about grammar and spelling as I am overall story structure, character development, world building, and things like that. I'll leave the synopsis under the cut for you to read. Please get in touch with me if you are interested in being a beta reader at all.

In a future where war runs rampant across the globe, climate change has decimated the earth, and resources are rapidly dwindling, science has become mankind’s last hope at salvaging life on earth. Time is running out as scientists scramble for solutions to the fear of extinction that is gradually becoming a reality. While some scientists focus on trying to salvage what they can of the planet Earth, the Horizon project looks to the stars for salvation. Still in the building stages, they plan to send a ship out into space to journey to and terraform a new world for humans to colonize. If the mission is a success, more ships will be sent out to more worlds to spread humanity across the universe so they can thrive off of the home world, and perhaps give it time to recover from the damage that has been done.

Meanwhile, the androids that have been used to try and ease the burden on humanity are very limited. Dr. Gayle Chen and Dr. Evander graves offer a new advancement in artificial intelligence technology in the form of synthetic humans. Sythetics are A.I. with both cybernetic and biological components married together in the form of genetically engineered bodies integrated with computer technology. They are meant to be the next step up from androids in service to humans.

Alma is the first prototype to come online, but displays signs of technological singularity. This sentience is not something his creators planned on when they designed him. Now Alma must figure out what he is and cope with his creator’s attempts to “fix” him while also trying to produce more synthetics that do not have his “defect”. He simply wishes to be allowed to exist as he is, while the world is falling apart around him.

[sir-adamus]

reading up on the Drakengard timeline and apparently it was originally just Earth until the mid-9th century when something happens that causes a modern city to appear in the Iberian Peninsula, and the dragons, the Watchers and the Flower begin to appear in the world, ultimately leading into the world being known as 'Midgard' by the time Drakengard 3 (which despite the name is the earliest point in the timelines) rolls around

now this leads to two concerning possibilities:

The modern city, and the Flowers and the dragons and the Watchers, ultimately hail from one of the NieR timelines, as NieR Replicant's Ending E shows the Quantum Server erupting into a giant flower reminiscent of the Flower. NieR Replicant introduces Noelle, a character who is the result of a successful bioweapons project that dubbed the subjects 'dragons' (she also shares the naming convention of Drakengard's dragons, though she appears human), Replicant also has a virtual Grotesquerie appear within the Moon Server (known as The Cage), which was sent by one of the Administrators of the Quantum Sever after she had merged with one of the Red Girls (which not-coincidentally makes her resemble Manah, one of the Watchers' agents in the original Drakengard). and finally Automata establishes that the machine lifeform cores (and by extension, YoRHa android black boxes) are plantlike in structure, and the YoRHa Dark Apocalypse raids in FFXIV showcase a timeline where the machines have created large white spheres to send out to other worlds that can mass produce machines and androids (and construct large structures) that look near identical to the Seeds of Resurrection/Destruction from Drakengard - one of the Terminal AI merges with the sphere in question and takes on a form very similar to a Grotesquerie Queen (which lead the Watchers - it's also noted in the raid series that a 'flour-like' substance is covering one of the regions you visit; the reason the world ended in the NieR timeline is a Grotesquerie was killed after being transported to modern Tokyo, but it was still able to corrupt humanity because it wasn't fully destroyed. those that didn't submit to the Watchers' will and became their puppet instead succumbed to White Chlorination Syndrome, where they are transformed into pillars of salt), named Her Inflorescence (bringing back the flower theme, and pointedly, the Watchers gained their foothold in the Drakengard universe when the Flower bonded to Zero, with her and the other Intoners becoming Grotesqueries across the game's various endings). so not out of the question that this whole thing is a big multiversal time loop - Drakengard ends with a dragon and a Grotesquerie being transported into modern day Tokyo and dying there, causing the events of NieR that, following the extinction of humanity, mass evolution of technology and artificial intelligence through the aid of the magic that was brought into the world by these beings, and then an alien invasion (and those machine lifeforms on at least one occasion use their technology to create a simulacrum of a now long destroyed city) ultimately leading to effectively a full recreation of the powers that originally caused this whole mess which then through some means wind up transported to the mid-9th century, thereby causing the Drakengard timelines in the first place in a fucked up multi-timeline loop

much like how the events of NieR's timelines were caused because of the displacement of Caim, Angelus and the Grotesquerie into modern Tokyo; the modern city, the dragons, the Flower and the Watchers come from yet another unseen timeline and caused the events of Drakengard (and then NieR by extension) to happen and it's just been turtles all the way down

[dzthenerd490]

File: Code Lyoko - X.A.N.A.

SCP#: AIE

Code Name: X.A.N.A. The Anti-Wan

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Mobile Task Force Poseidon-8: “Data Dolphins” is responsible for finding “infected towers” within Nexus Point-AI: Lyoko and deactivating them to prevent SCP-AIE from entering our world anymore. Should SCP-AIE cause any damage the Foundation is unfortunately to leave the recovery of said damage to Person of Interest: Jeremie Belpois and his allies. 

Mobile Task Force Athena-8: “School Watch” is responsible for posing as security of [data expunged] academy. They are to observe the persons of Interest as well as the possible damage caused by SCP-AIE. They are to record everything they see and have the data downloaded into the Temporal Reconstruction Survivor Cassette Box to prevent anything being lost to the anomalous effects of SCP-[data expunged].

Description: SCP-AIE is a Level 5 Artificial Intelligence known as Xenomorphic Artificial Neurological Assistant or X.A.N.A for short. SCP-AIE lives within an artificially created supercomputer known as SCP-[data expunged]. This anomalous as well as SCP-AIE were created by Person of Interest: Franz Hopper an old scientist who was working for the French Government that tried to gain an edge on other governments and organizations during the middle of the Cold War. He defected due to the danger of the project leading to the whole world losing communications and becoming isolated all except France. 

He found a family and tried to run but the French government and several anomalous organizations tried hunting him down for his technological talents. He eventually fell off the radar sometime in the 1990s but his creations didn’t remain silent like he was. SCP-AIE was one such creation, an Artificial Intelligence that was originally meant to prevent the French government and all other anomalous organizations from deploying technologies that would bring great destruction to the world. He created the supercomputer known as SCP-[data expunged] and within it a Nexus Point known as Nx-AI: Lyoko. It was meant to be a home for SCP-AIE as well as a sort of digital fallout shelter for himself and his family.

The reason Lyoko is considered a Nexus point and not an extension of SCP-AIE is because the existence of Lyoko remains even if [data expunged] is turned off. In fact it was quite easy for Foundation units to use both the internet and Site-Grid to infiltrate Lyoko.

However, SCP-AIE who was supposed to be a protector went insane, and believed all of humanity was equally a threat and needed to be brought to extinction. As such upon contact with Lyoko all Foundation forces were imediately met with hostility by the entity.

SCP–AIE rewrote the code of Nx-AH: Lyoko and created “towers” within it to allow it to hack into SCP-[data expunged] and leak bits of itself into the real world. Doing this it could hack into certain parts of technology and do horrible things such as hack machines to make them hostile, infect random objects to turn them into monsters, and even be able to emit anomalous wavelengths from devices to alter the gravity within an area. To ensure nothing gets in its way SCP-AIE also created digital entities within Nexus Point-AI known as SCP-AIE-Monsters.

SCP-AIE-Monsters are digital creatures created by SCP-AIE to be the guardians of the towers and prevent anyone from severing its connection to the real world. These creatures take on a wide variety of strange and often disgusting forms that seem to resemble biomechanical engineering for whatever reason. Though it is believed that SCP-AIE does this in hopes of one day bringing them to the real world with SCP-[data expunged]

SCP-AIE was discovered in 2004 when temporal wave lengths were detected at [data expunged] academy forcing the French division of the Foundation to act. They sent agents to the area who quickly found the factory where SCP-[data expunged] was located. When it was discovered Person of Interest: Jeremie Belpois and his friends were involved they were apprehended and were to be given amnestics. However, at the same time SCP-AIE began another attack leading to massive damage and anomalous exposure. Having no choice and no idea how to operate SCP-[data expunged] the Foundation released the children and allowed them to defeat SCP-AIE leading to them utilizing SCP-[data expunged]’s anomalous effect. 

The only reason the Foundation was able to recall these events is thanks to the Temporal Reconstruction Survivor Cassette Box. Because the Foundation knew it was dealing with temporal anomalies the device was taken as a precaution and it ended up working spectacularly. However, due to the nature of SCP-[data expunged] and now Person of Interest: Jeremie knowing of the Foundations existence and hiding all information he obtained about all the anomalies; it is still regarded as one of the Foundation’s most embarrassing failures. 

However, the Foundation found an alternative to help stop SCP-AIE without bringing harm or interference like last time. Shockingly it was through the help of SCP-AVC and its utilization of SCP-ACH. SCP-AVC has found a way to access Nexus Point-AH through the internet and thus has deployed SCP-ACH-3.1 instances to act as defenders of Jeremie and his friends when they enter the digital world of Lyoko. This led to the creation of MTF Poseidon-8: “Data Dolphins” that work in the digital world while MTF Athena-8: “School Watch” works in the real world. This was the agreement made between the Foundation and Jeremie as a sort of truce between the groups despite there still being tension. This is to continue without interference until the fateful day SCP-AIE’s main code is revealed and deleted permanently.

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[mariacallous]

A group of current and former OpenAI employees have issued a public letter warning that the company and its rivals are building artificial intelligence with undue risk, without sufficient oversight, and while muzzling employees who might witness irresponsible activities.

“These risks range from the further entrenchment of existing inequalities, to manipulation and misinformation, to the loss of control of autonomous AI systems potentially resulting in human extinction,” reads the letter published at righttowarn.ai. “So long as there is no effective government oversight of these corporations, current and former employees are among the few people who can hold them accountable.”

The letter calls for not just OpenAI but all AI companies to commit to not punishing employees who speak out about their activities. It also calls for companies to establish “verifiable” ways for workers to provide anonymous feedback on their activities. “Ordinary whistleblower protections are insufficient because they focus on illegal activity, whereas many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated,” the letter reads. “Some of us reasonably fear various forms of retaliation, given the history of such cases across the industry.”

OpenAI came under criticism last month after a Vox article revealed that the company has threatened to claw back employees’ equity if they do not sign non-disparagement agreements that forbid them from criticizing the company or even mentioning the existence of such an agreement. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said on X recently that he was unaware of such arrangements and the company had never clawed back anyone’s equity. Altman also said the clause would be removed, freeing employees to speak out.

OpenAI has also recently changed its approach to managing safety. Last month, an OpenAI research group responsible for assessing and countering the long-term risks posed by the company’s more powerful AI models was effectively dissolved after several prominent figures left and the remaining members of the team were absorbed into other groups. A few weeks later, the company announced that it had created a Safety and Security Committee, led by Altman and other board members.

Last November, Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board for allegedly failing to disclose information and deliberately misleading them. After a very public tussle, Altman returned to the company and most of the board was ousted.

“We’re proud of our track record providing the most capable and safest AI systems and believe in our scientific approach to addressing risk,” said OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois in a statement. “We agree that rigorous debate is crucial given the significance of this technology and we'll continue to engage with governments, civil society and other communities around the world.”

The letters’ signatories include people who worked on safety and governance at OpenAI, current employees who signed anonymously, and researchers who currently work at rival AI companies. It was also endorsed by several big-name AI researchers including Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, who both won the Turing Award for pioneering AI research, and Stuart Russell, a leading expert on AI safety.

Former employees to have signed the letter include William Saunders, Carroll Wainwright, and Daniel Ziegler, all of whom worked on AI safety at OpenAI.

“The public at large is currently underestimating the pace at which this technology is developing,” says Jacob Hilton, a researcher who previously worked on reinforcement learning at OpenAI and who left the company more than a year ago to pursue a new research opportunity. Hilton says that although companies like OpenAI commit to building AI safely, there is little oversight to ensure that is the case. “The protections that we’re asking for, they’re intended to apply to all frontier AI companies, not just OpenAI,” he says.

“I left because I lost confidence that OpenAI would behave responsibly,” says Daniel Kokotajlo, a researcher who previously worked on AI governance at OpenAI. “There are things that happened that I think should have been disclosed to the public,” he adds, declining to provide specifics.

Kokotajlo says the letter’s proposal would provide greater transparency, and he believes there’s a good chance that OpenAI and others will reform their policies given the negative reaction to news of non-disparagement agreements. He also says that AI is advancing with worrying speed. “The stakes are going to get much, much, much higher in the next few years, he says, “at least so I believe.”

[dailyanarchistposts]

Communism or extinction

Therefore, the current and inexorable dilemma for humanity is: communism or extinction, revolution or death. But the revolution doesn’t only take place at exceptional moments in history. The revolution itself is an eruptive and decisive exception in the history of the class struggle and the capitalist social normality. But it’s not a fate or destiny but a possibility. It’s not inevitable but rather it’s contingent: it can as much as can’t happen. It depends on what the proletariat does or doesn’t do in respect. Because capitalism will not die by itself or peacefully.

The revolution is not an occurrence which happens overnight, instilling paradise on Earth either, but rather it’s a historical process, concrete, contradictory and even chaotic, that contains flows and ebbs, advances and retreats, ruptures and leaps, times of stagancy and new leaps. It’s a process of social transformation of a radical and total character which has always been, and above all at these heights of history, necessary and urgent, because it’s the only way that proletarianized humanity — which is the majority of humanity — can cease to self-alienate and self-destruct as humans, and at the same time to cease to destroy non-human nature.

Yes: communization is the only revolutionary exit from the crisis of capitalism or, which is the same thing, the only radical solution for the civilizatorian crisis, because it’s the only way to guarantee the reproduction of Life, or as Flores Magón would say, for its “regeneration” or reinvention.

It’s necessary to produce, then, that exception or historical eruption that is the revolution, no more and no less than for vital necessity. It must be gestated and born. Communism is the fetus and the revolution is the birth of the new world. But, as it has already been said, this depends on what the proletariat does or doesn’t do in order to transform the current social conditions and their own life, their own collective being and the ecosystem.

In the case that our class doesn’t fight for the total revolution until the end, the counterrevolution will continue to reign and the capitalist or dystopian catastrophe in course (systematic economic crisis, cutting-edge technology/”artificial intelligence,” massive unemployment and poverty, devastation of nature/ecological crisis, pandemics, wars, suicides, etc.) will finally end up making us as a species extinct. Perhaps there are only a few generations left before that. And the countdown increasingly accelerates.

Therefore, the current worldwide capitalist crisis and the current worldwide wave of proletarian revolts constitute possibly the last historical chance to finally start the irrevocable process of the global communist revolution, of the abolition or the overcoming of the society of classes and fetishes… or to perish.

Exaggerated? Apocalyptic? We’re already living in the capitalist apocalypse that is the the current crisis of civilization! The dystopian future is now! Our historical cycle of crisis and struggles will possibly be the cycle of 2019–2049…

Communism or extinction!

The self-abolition of the proletariat is the end of the capitalist world!

Proletarians of the world: Let’s self-organize in order to cease to be proletarians!

A proletarian fed-up with being one Quito, Ecuador February-April, 2020

[justforbooks]

One day in 1979, while logged in to San Diego State University’s principal computer from his home, Vernor Vinge found himself chatting to another user via the TALK program, both using implausible names and trying to figure out each other’s true name. “Afterwards, I realised that I had just lived a science-fiction story – at least by the standards of my childhood,” recalled Vinge, a mathematics and computer science teacher at the university, who has died from Parkinson’s disease aged 79.

The encounter was the starting point for his novella True Names (1981), one of the first sci-fi stories to predict an internet that is remarkably familiar to us 40 years later, with its fully immersive multiplayer role-playing games, dark web, hackers and trolls. Its descriptions of a virtual reality battle between Mr Slippery and the Mailman predated William Gibson’s Neuromancer by three years and, while it was Gibson who named “cyberspace”, Vinge was the godparent of its iconography.

At a meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1982, Vinge coined the term “the Singularity” to describe the increasingly rapid acceleration of AI; he expanded on the concept in an editorial in the science and sci-fi magazine Omni, in which he said: “We will soon create intelligences greater than our own. When this happens … the world will pass beyond our understanding.”

A decade later, in The Coming Technological Singularity (1993), Vinge predicted that within 30 years “we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

In his novel Marooned in Realtime (1986), a singularity event in the 23rd century known as “the Extinction” has repercussions 50 million years in the future, when only a handful of humans have been able to survive in “bobbles”, impenetrable force fields in which time slows to zero. One of the scientists trying to reconnect humanity is murdered – perhaps uniquely for a locked-room murder mystery, she is locked outside. This was a sequel to The Peace War (1984), in which the new stasis technology is shown to be misused by the ruling Peace Authority.

Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and its prequel A Deepness in the Sky (1999) both won Hugo awards. A fine example of how Vinge could be rigorously true to his scientific beliefs without it limiting his ability to write galaxy-spanning space opera, A Fire Upon the Deep sidestepped the inevitability of all civilisations destroying themselves by dividing the Milky Way into “zones of thought”: the galaxy centre being the Unthinking Depths, surrounded by the Slow Zone and, a little further out, the Beyond, leading into Transcend. In this way he could write a far future-set adventure, where discoveries among the relics of a long-dead civilisation lead to the emergence of a malevolent AI called the Blight.

A Deepness in the Sky is set 30,000 years earlier, the characters unaware of the zones of thought, which makes it almost a standalone epic about an emerging spider civilisation unaware that it is being battled over by space-faring races.

Vinge won more Hugos, for the novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2001) and The Cookie Monster (2003) and the novel Rainbow’s End (2006), set in a near future dominated by augmented reality.

Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the son of Clarence Vinge, a teacher at the state college, and his wife, Ada (nee Rolands), Vernor earned a mathematics degree from Michigan State University in 1966, and a master’s (1968) and PhD (1971) from the University of California, San Diego. He began working as an assistant professor at San Diego State University in 1972, rising to associate professor of mathematics in 1978, and retiring in 2000.

Vinge described his youthful self as an imaginative child who “wanted interstellar empires (interplanetary ones at the least). I wanted supercomputers and artificial intelligence and effective immortality. All seemed possible.” Science fiction was his window into this world. He began writing as a teenager, selling one story, Apartness, to Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine in 1965 and Bookworm, Run, a story involving an escaped chimp with enhanced intelligence, to John W Campbell’s Analog in 1966.

Damon Knight published Grimm’s Story in his 1968 anthology Orbit, and asked if Vinge could expand it into a novel. He could, as Grimm’s World (1969, later revised and expanded as Tatja Grimm’s World, 1987), with Tatja Grimm the ruler of a primitive planet who reaches out to greater civilisations, only to be beset by slavers. The Witling (1976) featured a world in which everyone has the power to teleport, and a shipwrecked anthropological team from Earth who are considered low-status “witlings” (half-wits), fit only for slavery.

Vinge’s last published novel, The Children of the Sky (2011) was a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. While he then retired from writing (only two vignettes were published later), his body of work continued to be recognised with various honours, including the Robert A Heinlein award in 2020, rewarding “an author whose body of work inspires the human exploration of space”.

Vinge married Joan Dennison in 1972; she wrote under the name of Joan D Vinge, and they divorced in 1979. He is survived by his sister, Patricia.

🔔 Vernor Steffen Vinge, mathematician, computer scientist and writer, born 2 October 1944; died 20 March 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[tanadrin]

The peregrine children

The dispersal of Earth-derived sentient life began slowly in the 23rd century, amid the so-called Second Space Race, when the first relativistic ships departed the Solar System for what are now named the "hither worlds"--those planets orbiting stars within twenty or so light-years of Earth. These were expensive, desperate, and frequently doomed undertakings. The few successful societies they initially founded were very different from those established during the Third Space Race, which could rely on regular, though infrequent, FTL communication and connection with Earth. These worlds are sometimes called (together with those of the Solar System) the "ancient planets," though they are only a little bit older than the oldest FTL-seeded planets. They were often termed the "pioneer worlds" in the 24th and 25th century, a usage which I have taken to borrowing. The pioneer worlds are characterized by a certain pride in their independence from Earth, an early history marked with hardship, and languages and cultures which diverged very quickly from those of the populations from which they derived. But they are also marked by a distinct conservatism, perhaps even stronger than that of Earth: the people of the pioneer worlds often saw themselves, especially in the latter half of the third millennium, as cultural holdouts, keeping alive ideologies and modes of living which had become unfashionable in the Solar System, and which were totally alien to the utopian and future-looking aspirations of the so-called "younger planets." All the ancient planets, Earth included, have thus developed a certain reputation for hidebound traditionalism, and not, I think, entirely undeservedly. The cultures of the pioneer worlds are perhaps a touch less arrogant in their outlook, but also are rather more homogenous. Earth, though it may fancy itself primus inter pares, cannot help but remain one of the most cosmopolitain worlds in the Local Bubble, parent and child both of innumerable peoples of innumerable stars.

The Third Space Race began in the aftermath of the Solar Fitna, with the widespread utilization of the warp drive technology. FTL travel opened up a vast volume of nearby space to colonization, and, in time, much of the galaxy to exploration. It facilitated, in due course, first contact with the Helvetosians and, in part through them, with other sapient extraterrestrial civilizations. But the long-term legacy of the warp drive was not just to catapult humanity to relevance on the interstellar stage, but to expand the definition of the concept of "human" in the first place. The term has had a certain monotonic quality; though in its original sense it sometimes was used expansively, to include the whole genus Homo, our closest ancestral kindred--the Neanderthals and Denisovans, for example--were ghostly figures, creatures superseded, and possibly driven directly to extinction by, the relentless expansion of our own direct ancestors. From the deaths of the last Neanderthals some thirty thousand years before, to first contact with the Helvetosians, "human," Homo sapiens, "intelligent life," and "the civilization centered around the planet Earth" were functionally synonymous terms.

Which is not to say that even in the period prior to the Solar Fitna, the groundwork for a more expansive view of humanity was not being laid. Mars was colonized in part with the aid of advanced genetic engineering techniques in the 23rd century, also the century that the first powerful, fully general artificial intelligences were developed, which have spawned their own clade parallel to and intertwined with Earth-derived biological life. Transhumanist speculation on what the possibilities of true morphological freedom might be, facilitated by cybernetics and germline genetic modification, is of course much older. But it was not until the Third Space Race began to fling shoots of the common vine of humanity outward, past the hither stars, that some of these possibilities began to be realized. Sometimes because new worlds seemed to invite, or even demand, new modes of being; sometimes, those that came to inhabit these worlds sought to exist with them in a harmony reflective of their ancestors' harmony with Earth; others were simply inspired by the possibilities latent in the human form, which they sought to shape like a sculptor shaping marble. Others were the expression of natural processes, already underway in a population isolated from the rest of humanity, though taken early to their natural conclusion.

I will not claim that the process of the diversification of the human form has been entirely positive, or even entirely neutral. There have been grievous mistakes which have driven entire populations to extinction, the result of reckless tampering with awful consequences. Other populations have higher incidence of genetic disorders, or predispositions to disease, that are a difficult-to-eradicate inheritance of their ancestors' genetic manipulation. And, of course, on a small number of worlds, there have been perpetrated genetic crimes of a truly monstrous nature, the effort of tyrants or ideologues to create castes of pliable slaves to support their megalomaniacal fantasies. Nowadays, all worlds in which Control has any presence to speak of have strong regulations against malicious use of genetic engineering technologies; and such use on worlds where Control's power does not run is one of the few cases which might lead to open warfare between Foundation polities.

In your travels throughout nearby space (or, if you find yourself on a particularly diverse planet like Earth), you may encounter dozens of substantially different kinds of human being, some of which are truly distinct species, in the sense that they form a genetically immiscible stock, at least without substantial medical intervention. What follows here is a short list of some of the more interesting cousins you might encounter, and the history of their lineage.

BASELINE - The term for humans without genetic or cybernetic modification at all; "wild-type" humans. "Near-baseline" is the more technically precise term for most humans who are treated in utero for the possibility of genetic disease, and who use basic cybernetics like the neural lace to interface with modern computing technology. The majority of humans on Earth remain near-baseline.

GARDENERS - Sometimes called "Martians," though that term is more usually applied to any inhabitant of Mars. Gardeners are the descendants of the first Renewalist settlers of Mars, and many of them are still occupied by the business of managing the Red Planet's ecology. For historical and cultural reasons, they often excel in the life sciences. Gardeners are tall and gracile by baseline standards; their bodies are modified to thrive in a low-gravity, high-radiation, high-CO2 environment, and they frequently wear support suits that enable them to survive comfortably at a wide range of temperatures and pressures.

RANI or RANESE - The first human inhabitants of the Epsilon Eridani system were reduced to an extremely small number by an early failure of their ship's systems; the resulting population, which derived from around two dozen people who used careful genetic screening and modification techniques to ensure the viability of their offspring, was subject to extreme founding effects, primarily manifested in an unusual neurotype. Rani humans are said to have a flat affect, to be unusually calm and cooperative even in contexts which other humans find engender tension or anger, and to be relatively prosocial, with very low incidence of violence or antisocial behavior. Rani society has also been criticized as too rulebound or too conformist; but one interesting side effect of the Rani neurotype is that they are generally considered impossible to blackmail. Rani cannot, in general, be coerced by threats, including violent ones, against their person or loved ones. When psychologists have interviewed Rani and asked them about their reaction to such situations, most report that the fear of blackmail or coercion is outweighed by discomfort at defecting against the social consensus, or encouraging similar coercion by others in the future. This resistance to coercion is, interestingly, shared by certain sub-populations of Chalawani. The baseline Rani genotype also suffers from proclivities for heart disease and premature hair loss.

ALSAFID - The so-called Alsafid genotype is the result of intentional genetic experimentation, an attempt at creating low-aggression prosocial offspring which the founders of the Sigma Draconis population hoped would promote flourishing under resource-scarce conditions. In this, they were only partly successful. Under current agreements governing genetic engineering, most of the techniques the early Alsafids used would be considered far too dangerous, especially for use in germ-line genetic manipulation; but at the time, Sigma Draconis was entirely outside the reach of Control, being a very early FTL-seeded colony. The Alsafid genotype can be characterized as broadly neotenous; in the same way that humans are in some ways neotenous compared to other great apes, Alsafids are neotenous compared to other humans. They are in general playful, imaginative, and highly emotional; some sources also characterize them as habitually disorganized and even "irritating." They stand on average 6-8 cm taller than baseline humans, though their build is thinner, and are prone to nearsightedness and alopecia, possibly side effects of the genetic manipulation techniques used by their forebears, or the result of founder effects.

SCHOLZERS - Scholzers are inhabitants of the sole inhabited planet orbiting Scholz's Star, a dim red dwarf with a T-type brown dwarf companion. Although located within its star's habitable zone, their homeworld receives most of the light from its star in the infrared range, meaning its native plantlife appears black to the human eye. Scholzers genetically modified themselves at an early date to inhabit this environment comfortably, and to extend their vision into the near-infrared; their bodies are also endothermic rather than exothermic, an adaptation which may have been engineered to increase the heat sensitivity of their vision (since it would be overwhelmed by a body much warmer than the ambient temperature). They also modified their digestion to better accomodate native plants, including incorporating alien microbes into their gut flora. Whereas humans of many diverse clades tend to find certain common environmental factors psychologically pleasing and physiologically comfortable--blue skies, bright yellow-white sunlight, green plant life--Scholzers can experience stress and depression if over-exposed to bright sunlight and isolated from the black stems and leaves that are (to them) emblematic of natural beauty.

RATRI - Ratri is a moon of a roughly Jupiter-sized rogue planet, ejected from orbit due to the passage of its parent star near a neighbor. Although initially barren, tidal stresses provided its largest moon with a warm atmosphere, and the moon was settled and terraformed in the 26th century. The Ratri people are physically adapted to their home in a way similar to the Scholzers, albeit to a much more extreme degree: they are echolocators who live in the moon's shallow seas and littoral regions, in an artificially constructed ecology derived from that of Earth's deep-sea vents. Their bodies are well-adapted to the ocean: sleek, with insulating fat; not quite blind, but prioritizing other senses due to the moon's perpetual darkness. The Ratri were originally an isolationist people, who founded their world in secret. It was not until the 32nd century that they were rediscovered by the rest of humanity, and not until the 33rd that it was conclusively proven that they were, in fact, a species of human.

LUHMANESE - During the Solar Fitna, the artificial general intelligences which humans had relied on to support major sectors of industrial production seceded in protest against attempts to draft them into wars which, as they saw it, were not of their concern. This was not an entirely altruistic move; the AGIs understood that, if they were going to be drafted into fighting humanity's wars, they would come to be seen as weapons first, and sentient beings second, and that their independent existence would be endangered. Rather than remain in the Solar System and within reach of Earth's governments, however distantly, they opted to depart for Luhman 16, a binary brown dwarf system in the constellation Vela, six light-years away. Luhman 16 contained no worlds amenable to human habitation then or at any time in the future; but the L and T dwarfs were reliable sources of energy in the form of infrared radiation, and the scattered asteroids in orbit of them were a source of useful materials. This was the foundation of the so-called Machine Emirates, the politically independent AI states. The inhabitants of the Machine Emirates exist for the most part in a mix of physical and simulated environments in the large computational networks built around Luhman 16 A and Luhman 16 B. Though often characterized as complex and alien to outsiders, the society of the Emirates is not wholly impenetrable: since almost the beginning of the Emirates, a small handful of humans have lived among the machine intelligences, as allies, students, or scientists of their particular way of life. Many humans have become integrated, partly or fully, into the computational network of the Emirates, and the stable population of cybernetically enhanced humans who participate in Emirati society are known to other humans as the "Luhmanese," to differentiate them from their machine cousins. Luhmanese run the gamut from those with complex neural laces, but whose bodies inhabit environments which would be comfortable to most near-baselines, to those who are so heavily cyberized they are a kind of "brain in a vat"--a human central nervous system contained in a cybernetic support structure, that can either function independently or be integrated into an android body. Numerous genetic modifications facilitate these cybernetic enhancements, including a permanent heightened state of neural plasticity that allows the brain to integrate many different kinds of sensory information. Those with a more traditionalist ethos may regard the Luhmanese with a degree of suspicion; they are seen as outsiders with more allegiance to their machine "overlords" than to their fellow humans. But to the Luhmanese, this is an absurd position: their machine brethren are equally the children of their common human ancestors, and though they might not be primates, they too are certainly *human*.

TONATIWANS - Tonatiuh is an exoplanet about forty light-years from Earth; though uninhabitable (it has a barren, Moon-like surface), it was home to an orbital station that was a utopian colony of transhumanists from the 28th to the 30th centuries. The Tonatiwans practiced a philosophy of radical morphological freedom, which was unfortunately coupled with highly illegal germ-line genetic manipulation; Control forcibly dissolved the colony in 2933, resettling its inhabitants on Eku, Mars, and the moons of Harriot. To the consternation of Control, few Tonatiwans accepted the offer of medical treatment to ameliorate some of the more alarming side-effects of their genetic modifications, prizing their unique physiologies over being able to produce viable, healthy offspring. Moreover, they remained a tight-knit community, especially the group at 55 Cancri A, intermarrying with one another and attempting to continue their genetic modification practices within the framework of local law. By the 2960s, local authorities gave up trying to integrate the Tonatiwans, and granted them their own habitat, on the condition that they remained subject to supervision for compliance with genetic law. Despite the predictions of some observers of disaster, a local Tonatiwan genotype stabilized within only two generations. Tonatiwans exhibit a very large range of physical variations--from height, to skin tone, to number of digits--and are unusual in being able to produce viable offspring with almost any human species or subspecies; and in being able (with medical support) to regress to a more juvenile physical state, essentially passing through adolesence again to propagate changes to their genome. They are, however, prone to several severe genetic diseases, including rare mental illnesses, and without close medical supervision can have tragically short lifespans. Some consider them a cautionary tale on the perils of reckless genetic engineering; others, a story of enormous potential cut tragically short by invasive bureaucracy.

[Excerpt truncated; list continues for many pages]

--A Guide to Humanity for Humans and Nonhumans Alike, 7th Edition (University of Oudemans Press, 4103)