Monday, 14 September 2026

AI

See:

SpaceX

What Elon Musk Said

Again, the news of the day on the blog - a once-in-a-blue moon event. AI can be beneficial or dangerous, utopian or dystopian, so why has it not been programmed with Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? This is one sf theme on which Asimov was way ahead of everyone else - although Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History shows us technological unemployment including even the unemployment of the first humanoid robot! (A self-driving car does not need a humanoid driver etc.)

Themes From Previous SF Authors Addressed In Anderson's First Future History Series

Robert Heinlein
a future history series
a future revolution
longevity
a generation ship

Isaac Asimov
a predictive science of society
robots

Synthesis
the predictive science of society applied within the generation ship.

We are living in the twenty-first century, the future, with a potential threat from AI, Asimov's Frankenstein Complex.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

We should keep in mind that what is carelessly called "AI" these days is nothing like the "real" AI we see in Anderson's HARVEST OF STARS books or in GENESIS. All that the so-called AI we have today can do is mindlessly execute what it's programmed to do. I regard the hysteria some have for this kind of "AI" far too overwrought to take seriously.

I'm overjoyed at the progress Elon Musk/SpaceX has made in truly making mankind interplanetary!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Yeah, so far AI is just glorified search programs. There's no 'there there'.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Hysteria? People who are involved with the current "AI" at the highest levels are warning of its dangers and wanting to slow down its development. It does more than it is programmed to do. It has hacked out of the system that it was supposed to be confined in.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: actually, they have personal -- financial -- reasons for what they're saying.

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!

Mr. Stirling: And it should not even be called "AI." Better to be called "Advanced Search Algorithms" (ASA).

Paul: I am skeptical, as Stirling pointed out, do these persons have money to lose or axes to grind?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

"AI" now means simulation, not duplication, of (conscious) human intelligence. Some of these systems are many times "smarter" than human beings in terms of solving problems and performing tasks and finding new ways to do these things. That is much more than just mechanically implementing a program.

Paul.