Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Princess and the Bookclub Meeting

Hi Folks!

I am scheduling a bookclub meeting at my home for next Tuesday (August 4th) from say around 6.30pm. If you would like to come, please email me (Larissa) and I will forward out my address if you don't already have it.
- Lock

The Princess and the Bookclub Meeting - Locked

Saturday, July 25, 2009

I want to know!

What did you read?


What did think of it?

Did anyone try SciFi for the first time and did you like it, loathe it or couldn't get into it?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The challenge...

Heather set it up - find a sci fi in which AI, or the like, ended well and humanity suffered naught...


I can't recall one, so I'm doing some research.  Here's my tribute to the weird things you find on any search, I'm not too sure what to make of this article, or the website itself, but if you follow the "singularity" wiki link from the "About" section you find one of the greatest fears of the God Sci Fi realm.

And this quote "The WWW trilogy is my attempt to revisit that question, and see whether there is a plausible way for us to survive the advent of nonhuman superintelligent while still retaining our essential humanity and individuality." Leads me to think that this book may do it, though I haven't read it myself, happy to see we have a copy in Admin!

I think AI would mostly be given a bad rap because of our inherent control-freak natures.  We don't understand how most things work in our world, but we trust that someone, somewhere, some-what like us does understand how it works and can control it or fix it.  What happens if someone non-human has a say in how our world works? How would human interests be of most imortance  to a non-human mind?  Is it residual guilt - look how badly we have treated the world, would someone else assess the needs of the planet ahead of our need?

Ok, i'm going to go read a kids book - this is hurting my brain.