AI

I have received as presents two recently published books about the immediate future of AI, meaning sophisticated algorithms, not conscious artefacts, although some argue, "This algorithm is so sophisticated that maybe it has become conscious." Discussion of these works might be relevant in relation to Poul Anderson's spec fic. 

Anderson's works exist in a vast context, mythological, historical, literary, cosmological and technological, and also before and after, e.g., Wells is before; after includes AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Li and Chen Quifan, published in 2021, which combines up-to-date fact with spec fic. I might post more about this here but will have to read more of it first.

Continuing reflections on consciousness: the objective empirical realm is an inter-subjective abstraction from concrete subject-object interactions; however, consciousness/subjectivity is not ontologically primary but is a property of complex, sensitive organisms.