I’ve been rereading old books that might have been unduly influential on my young mind and thus returned to Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”. The protagonist is an apolitical computer programmer who befriends his computer and gets sucked into plotting a coup against the prison/government system for its failure to be adequately benevolent when a crisis arises that requires the role of “government” be filled by a regime able to do something other than “pure benign neglect + stealing shit sometimes”.
The model of “computing” is very retrofuturistic (an imaginary future projected forward from a simpler era) but its technicalities have an internal logic of sorts. The computer participates in the political discussions… Reading again with modern eyes, I was surprised to find a lurking alignment story.
Note that the associated warning is very much warranted:
This online novel contains strong language and extreme depictions of acts of sex and violence. Readers who are sensitive to such things should exercise discretion.
Detonation—an entertaining book that tries to flesh out a fast takeoff scenario and explicitly cites Bostrom and Yudkowsky. However, it also makes some extremely dubious choices; for example, the protagonist is a Marine hired to fight against the unfriendly AI, which doesn’t seem like a very effective AI alignment strategy.
i didnt know that story, but a friend just told me that “avocadro corp” is showing in vivid detail how an autocorrect system like grammarly could be harnessed by an AI to subtly take over the world
[kidding] Who Framed Roger Rabbit is about the aftermath of an unaligned AI that was successfully fitted with a shutdown button whose existence it completely ignores, and the programmers pressed the button after a few seconds of seeing the AI begin to implement its plan.
I’ve been rereading old books that might have been unduly influential on my young mind and thus returned to Heinlein’s “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”. The protagonist is an apolitical computer programmer who befriends his computer and gets sucked into plotting a coup against the prison/government system for its failure to be adequately benevolent when a crisis arises that requires the role of “government” be filled by a regime able to do something other than “pure benign neglect + stealing shit sometimes”.
The model of “computing” is very retrofuturistic (an imaginary future projected forward from a simpler era) but its technicalities have an internal logic of sorts. The computer participates in the political discussions… Reading again with modern eyes, I was surprised to find a lurking alignment story.
Crystal Society
Friendship is Optimal & related spinoffs
Define “related?”
Stories of wishes gone awry, like King Midas, are the original example.
Greg Egan’s Crystal Nights is about an attempt to align an AI society.
just in case just you consider just knowing the theme as kind of a spoiler; the short movie:
The Intelligence Explosion
https://aiimpacts.org/partially-plausible-fictional-ai-futures/
The TV series Person of Interest, if only loosely.
The webcomic Seed.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is about what happens when a partially aligned AI takes over the world before its creators expect that.
Note that the associated warning is very much warranted:
just in case just you consider just knowing the theme as kind of a spoiler; the short movie (part of an anthology):
Love, Death & Robots s1e14: Zima Blue
Anthology name, without more details for those desiring partial information:
Love, Death & Robots
ah, made me thought of another one particularly relevant:
Love, Death & Robots s1e6
The title of the episode is even more spoilery, so am putting it separately:
When the Yogurt Took Over
Clearly the best episode.
Detonation—an entertaining book that tries to flesh out a fast takeoff scenario and explicitly cites Bostrom and Yudkowsky. However, it also makes some extremely dubious choices; for example, the protagonist is a Marine hired to fight against the unfriendly AI, which doesn’t seem like a very effective AI alignment strategy.
The link doesn’t work.
hopefully fixed?
Yes. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38884954-detonation works fine.
Avogadro Corp
I haven’t read it, but the summary makes it seem related
i didnt know that story, but a friend just told me that “avocadro corp” is showing in vivid detail how an autocorrect system like grammarly could be harnessed by an AI to subtly take over the world
AI takeoff story: a continuation of progress by other means
movie: Ex Machina
TV show “NeXt”
See my reviews
[kidding] Who Framed Roger Rabbit is about the aftermath of an unaligned AI that was successfully fitted with a shutdown button whose existence it completely ignores, and the programmers pressed the button after a few seconds of seeing the AI begin to implement its plan.