Has anyone posted about Seth Dickinson yet? I don’t keep up on the open threads as much as I’d like, but my google-fu says no.
Last year I was blown away by a short story by Seth Dickinson called A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed). Recently I went and checked out Seth Dickinson’s other works. I’ve read over half of them now, and I gotta say—I STRONGLY recommend this author. Many of his works have a very strong transhumanist message, and some could be called rationalist. I’m kinda surprised I haven’t already heard his name brought up on LessWrong, or SlateStarCodex, or /r/rational. I’m fixing that this week.
A few of my favorite stories:
Economies of Force—A post-GAI story where humanity made AI that almost captures our values, but not quite, and it results in the sort of utopia you might expect from that sort of failure. Shades of Amputation of Destiny and Bostrom’s Empty Disneyland. If anyone can figure out the significance of the name “Loom”, please let me know. It must have been chosen for a reason, but I’m not making the connection.
Has anyone posted about Seth Dickinson yet? I don’t keep up on the open threads as much as I’d like, but my google-fu says no.
Last year I was blown away by a short story by Seth Dickinson called A Plant (Whose Name is Destroyed). Recently I went and checked out Seth Dickinson’s other works. I’ve read over half of them now, and I gotta say—I STRONGLY recommend this author. Many of his works have a very strong transhumanist message, and some could be called rationalist. I’m kinda surprised I haven’t already heard his name brought up on LessWrong, or SlateStarCodex, or /r/rational. I’m fixing that this week.
A few of my favorite stories:
Economies of Force—A post-GAI story where humanity made AI that almost captures our values, but not quite, and it results in the sort of utopia you might expect from that sort of failure. Shades of Amputation of Destiny and Bostrom’s Empty Disneyland. If anyone can figure out the significance of the name “Loom”, please let me know. It must have been chosen for a reason, but I’m not making the connection.
Sekhmet Hunts the Dying Gnosis: A Computation—A rather literal take on Meditations on Moloch, and/or An Alien God
Morrigan in the Sunglare—Like Bayesians vs Barbarians, told from the PoV of the Barbarians (sort of).
Kumara—a seriously beautiful post-singularity transhumanist story. Just… really beautiful. And murderous.