this! sentience is in no way a requirement at all. The opposite even. if we somehow manage to create something that has an inner self experience, then we at least have something to reason with. the problem is when an agent goes roque by following a task way too closely for our liking and uses methods that we didn’t anticipate. And if we change the task formulation, then that would be really bad for doing the initial task. so the agent might have a real incentive to prevent us from changing the prompt.
In Asimov’s original robot stories, collected in “I, Robot”, the robots were not evil. Humans gave the robots Laws of Robotics to follow and the robots followed the rules. The problem was that the humans could not anticipate every scenario a robot could/would encounter. Sometimes the end result was the humans got hurt or even killed but it wasn’t because the robots were evil: they were just following the Laws of Robotics given to them. Modern AI is basically the same except a lot more complicated than Asimov’s robot stories. With the more powerful of today’s AI programs, we have little control over what the AI learns and we often do not understand why they do what they do. But again, AI is not evil: it’s just doing what we taught it to do. It is our fault that our methods of teaching AI makes it behave badly.
A.I being seeing as evil is overdone. We humans sadly have more fear and trust on emotions than logic. When it come to things which require deep thinking such as A.I etch.
I've put this video off for several weeks now, but since I've basically completed the first video of my "Harmony saga by Orson Scott Card" series, it was now or never. So the good news is that next week, I should hopefully have the first Harmony Saga recap video out!
An abacus is as aware as AI will ever be. Humans will of course cause as many problems with computers as we do with all else. Allegory of human and societal problems is another field. Currently grazing. Most science fiction is science fantasy. Space and other opera ends when fat lady sings, so to write. Over time we learn how limited our future tech must soon be. Oil and gas gone by 2120. When coal gone, so will most machines be likewise. Cellulose can be heat anaerobically converted to coke, artificial coal...but we use YEARLY what took perhaps a million years for 'Gaia' to create. When it finally costs more in fuel to dig up fuel...well, the mined poisons will take a geologic age to be reabsorbed below the biosphere, and ALL mining will be hand and hoof....where extreme machines became useless. NO mining, for millions of years. Coal was a one time deal, no more will form. Say, when Antarctica is ice free, we can get a little more poison to donate to our misery. And as continents move...an inch per year...a little more fuels will...'surface' to available level. Million years, an extra mile at SOME continental shores. A thin red-black line. byee. Sci fi fan 65 years...accepted reality 60 years ago. Fam are/were scientists, international level. Ciao.
True, current 'ai' has no comprehension of anything. It's not sentient. But many fictional ai, definately do have comprehension of morality. R Daneel Olivaw surely did.
Yes, there were many I could have listed. But the great thing about debunking absolute statements like 'all ai turned out to be evil' is you only need one case where it didn't to prove it false!
Hey man, this was excellent! Yes, one of the greatest SciFi novels EVER written. Honorable mention to Steakley's Vampire$. Maybe the greatest modern day vampire novel ever written... SUBSCRIBED!
Rama Revealed is great as a standalone... by itself, i get to engage in descriptive details of a giant ship and a conflict of humans and other alien colonies, but honestly, the exploration is what draws me, so having to imagine all the visual splendor in my head makes up for the political human stuff happening in the background... It honestly was not central to my focus lol
While at my mother’s friends STar Trek cartoons came on. This was 1983 if by I remember correctly and I was 10 years old. My mothers B friend, who was an author who paid for it with long haul semi hauling. While I was watching an episode he jumped up! Yelling “ those are Kzinti!!!!!!” And then “why are they pink???” That began my B life long fascination with both the hard sci-fi genre and the absolutely amazing writing and world building of the great Larry Niven. After showing interest in the origins of the Kzinti he offered me the doorway into Nivens “Known Space” universe. I was loaned the wonderful “Neutron Star” book of short stories and devoured it in a day. This was the golden age of 1960’s sci-fi!
I read and still have all the paperbacks. Most amazing stuff I ever read. As someone said I hope to see the movie because much of this is so hard to imagine and would be nice to see it explained!
Woah. There are many things in RwR that are not explained by common sense and known physics. It's not as bullet proof as many seem to think it is. Problems such as: -The way the "gravity" works (essentially there's none unless you are standing on the interior, but Clarke seems to think there is some kind of diminishing gravity towards the spin axis in mid air). -The atmosphere. Funnily enough completely breathable by humans. And what happens when the interior gets down to near absolute zero? - All those lifeforms in the ocean. Yet nobody dies from alien bacteria and, v.v, Rama is not affected by the introduction of Earth bacteria. - The stairs; how very anthropocentric (along with quite a few other things). - The rather unrealistic trajectory across the inner solar system. Clarke seems to have made some effort to do a back of a fag packet calculation, but his timings are a factor of two out. Ok, it's just a story and it's an interesting read, but it's certainly not as scientifically accurate as it could have been. Clarke does a lot better in some of his other stories. There are other issues too - nobody takes any interest in magical materials that can survive asteroid impacts. They didn't even bother to take any samples. But that's another set of suspension of disbelief. 😄
I've not read the latter books. - this one sounds like garbage. Mind you, even the original book, supposedly with hard science, has quite a few things that don't make any sense and are inconsistent with basic physics.
Well, you did it - you inspired me to buy a book (I'm reading it now). I've been reading science fiction since the 70s and had read quite a few of Heinlein's works, but I had not read this one. Along the way, I got distracted by other authors (like Larry Niven for one), and had just never gotten back to him. Thank you! P.S. I love your channel.
Your channel is so informative and well put together with interesting subject matter! I’m surprised you don’t have more subs! I’ll definitely spread the word to my small corner of the internet.
the first book rendezvous with rama is a classic true arthur c clark. the other 3 are garbage written by gentry lee and with clarks name tacked on for marketing purposes . I cannot despise them greatly enough absolute rubbish.
Question: Why didn’t the Paq transformed humans on Hul (no idea how to spell it) not attack one another in order to preserve their ancestral line of breeders? How were they able to work together against the oncoming Paq scouts? Did Bennet successfully engineer this specific aspect out of the virus he put inside Roy?
Brennan had engineered the virus to be airborne. Any breeder not at the proper age to transform died. So none of the protectors of Home (the planet) had a line to protect anymore. Brennan decided to sacrifice one world to protect earth.
Love the Rama series... Totally got me into the Sci-Fi genre and made me a solid fan of Arthur C. Clarke. (Check out "Childhood's End" and "The City And The Stars" too!) I think Morgan Freeman owned the movie rights for a long time! Perhaps still does? I've waited for a film about Rama for decades. It can be done. I just hope it's done good and with love and care...
Thanks for this review. I just listened to Book 1 and wondered if the sequels were worth it. Based on what you’ve said, I intend to pass. Thanks again!
It's always great seeing another video from you, thanks for the great content. I haven't seen total recall though so i did pause the video to watch it. I've enjoyed many books you've talked about and suggested, some have become favorites of mine, so thank you for that as well. Can't wait for the next video.
You NEED to see the newer version, rhen make another video. I want to listen to that. I personally loved all three versions, and could never pick a favorite.
For some reason, no digital artist seems to be able to create an accurate rendition of the landscape of Rama as described in the books. They always add things that do not belong there, like bridges and forests, or make everything too small.
