So finally got around to watching a recent movie that I won’t name since I am not sure if it was part of the marketing, but the premise was that there was an all powerful AI that was going to take over the world and it used a mixture of predictive reasoning, control of technology, and limited human agents who were given a heads up on what was coming.
It was… mostly disappointing and felt like a much tamer version of Linda Nagata’s The Red (apologies as that is TECHNICALLY a spoiler, but the twist is revealed like a hundred pages into the first book that came out a decade ago). And an even weaker version still of Person of Interest.
Because if we are in the world where an AI has access to every camera on the planet and can hack communications in real time and so forth: We aren’t going to have vague predictions of what someone might do. We are going to have Finch and Root at full power literally dodging bullets (and now I am sad again) and basically being untouchable. Or the soldiers of The Red who largely have what amounts to x-ray vision so long as they trust their AI overlord and shoot where told and so forth.
Or just the reality of how existential threats can be both detected and manufactured as the situation calls for utilizing existing resources/Nations.
Any suggestions for near future (although, I wouldn’t be opposed to a far future space opera take on this) stories that explore this? I don’t necessarily need a Frankenstein Complex “we must stop it because it is a form of life that is not us”, but I would definitely prefer an understanding of just how incredibly plausible this all is (again, I cannot gush enough about Linda Nagata’s The Red). Rather than vague hand waving to demonstrate the unique power of the human soul
spoiler
Or the large number of thetans within it
I quite enjoyed “Avogodro Corp” by William Hertling. It’s the story of an email predictive text engine that grows into something more than that. Simple story but an interesting thought experiment.
“The Nexus Trilogy” by Ramez Naam is more complex and has a much larger story, but it draws heavily on singularity theory, transhumanism, and posthumanism themes. The first book only touches on AI tangentially, but there’s a heavier focus on it later in the series.
“I Have no Mouth and I must Scream” is an extremely dark experimental piece that envisions a malicious AI as a mad god. It’s mentioned elsewhere in this thread and is absolutely essential if you’re going to be reading or writing about AI, in my opinion. This one is more psychological horror than hard sci Fi, but will stick with you forever.