Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
"LOVE LOVE LOVE your futorological brickbats! Love them! You are in fine company with Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary with these." -- Paulina Borsook
"Devoted to highly rhetorical nitpicking, but it is fun to read." -- Chris Mooney
"Rather close but correct reading." -- Evgeny Morozov
"Mean, but true." -- Annalee Newitz
"Dale Carrico's skewering of the salvific pretensions of Silicon Valley's soi disant savior/founders never disappoints." -- Frank Pasquale
"Pretty breathless, but I guess it had to be said." -- Bruce Sterling
"An essential reality check for those who are too entranced by transhumanism to notice the sordid reality behind the curtain." -- Charlie Stross
1 comment:
> It is scarcely surprising that. . . [SF] would provide endless
> variations on the conceits of either the construction of
> artificial intelligences or contact with alien intelligences.
Speaking of aliens and AIs, I wonder if you've ever come across
an SF novel from the early 80s titled _An XT Called Stanley_
by Robert Trebor (the author's name is the pseudonym of an as-yet-unidentified
American, according to http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/trebor_robert ).
It combines both tropes into one very decent story.
A summary of _Stanley_ at Google Books (on p. 189 of a volume of
_Future and Fantastic Worlds: A Bibliographical Retrospective of
DAW Books_) gives:
"In orbit at the New Hope satellite, men finally made
contact with a civilization in the stars. It came in the form of
a complex signal which enabled the building of a supercomputer
to embody it. Top secret, they called the entity Stanley and allowed
it to project a humanoid image to speak for it.
But that XT, that Extra-Terrestrial intelligence, played a cagey game
with its interpreters. Possessed of a data bank containing the
whole knowledge of an alien super-science, it refused to divulge
anything until its own questions about humanity were answered.
The battle of wits at New Hope: Stanley versus humanity, scientists
versus politicians, and, possibly, planet versus planet, became
a growing crisis that could either open up the stars or else
put an end to Earth's fondest dreams."
The summary sounds somewhat gritty, but I recall the book as being
rather sweet, even moving. It would've made a good movie, too.
Post a Comment