Friday, 10 March 2023

Three Positions

Genesis, PART ONE, V.

Stormseekers: "...let the Ice come." (p. 43)

Omar Hamid: Prevent the Ice Age with solar mirrors that will leave Earth unchanged.

Terra Central: Prevent the Ice Age by means that will be more expensive and that will recarbonize Earth but that will leave us better equipped to deal with Solar passage through a nebula nine thousand years hence.

The longer term perspective of artificial intelligence triumphs over human short termism.

Upload Christian Brannock has gone to the stars. Laurinda Ashcroft is invited to upload into Terra Central, thus to remain on Earth. Both will survive indefinitely although they are unlikely to meet.

In 2023, I hope still to be alive in 2033. In 2023, I hope that someone in 2033 will remember having been me in 2023. Do these propositions differ in meaning? Long after Brannock and Laurinda have died, their uploads remember having been them.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Except that longer term "perspective" of the AIs, if humans agreed to it, came with the cost of all real control over their lives being surrendered to them. I would say NYET!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Or to be metaphorical, I'd rather go to hell my way than heaven by doing what a computer says.

Seven thousand years ago agriculture was just reaching parts of Europe and Proto-Indo-European wasn't spoken yet.

Who the hell knows what human beings will be, or will be capable of, or will -want- to do seven thousand years from now?

Blow the ****ing AI up, I say -- and anyone else who gets in the way.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Amen!!!

Ad astra! Sean