Jaccavrie is an interstellar spaceship with a consciousness-level computer. We will not rehearse the philosophical issues about consciousness and computers yet again. But here is another issue. Jaccavrie serves a human being, Daven Laure. However, the next logical step after Jaccavrie would be post-organic intelligences crossing interstellar distances not in the service of organic beings but purely for their own purposes - like maybe the pursuit of knowledge? And that is what happens in Poul Anderson's later-written Genesis.
Genesis is not a sequel to "Starfog" because the two works are set in different fictional futures. However, there are meta-relationships between future histories. Anderson's Psychotechnic History was modeled on Heinlein's Future History. In the Future History, D.D. Harriman lives underground as a precaution against nuclear attack whereas, in Genesis, Laurinda Ashcroft lives underground because the ecology is planned. See "Haven't Future Histories Come A Long Way?" (here) So future histories reflect the successive decades in which they were written.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Here you touched on points that would need thinking about before I could adequately comment about this blog piece.
CAN there be such things as non-organic AIs? And would they serve themselves instead of their makers?
Ad astra! Sean
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