18 KiB
[Q] I'm looking for a story (AI swallows world into sim, pain games, tattoos, rabies, zombie pedo and post-sim incest)
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Author: u/EntrayaCrosshill *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4rp66n/q_im_looking_for_a_story_ai_swallows_world_into/
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Score: 6
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Created: 2016-07-07T15:33:30
Post:
I forgot the name. The name had a butterfly motif, but it seems to be swallowed by everything else when i try to google. I figured that rationalfic would overlap greatly with the AI folks, thus increasing the chances a bit Cues from the title should be enough for anyone who has read it
Comments:
u/None [+26] (9 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+6] fear of last pages (13 hours later)
I felt it grew a bit self-indulgent with all the torture porn
Maybe it’s just because I found this story at a period when guro was interesting to me, but its torture porn elements and especially the setting in which they were happening (voluntary pain games, complete recovery from all physical damage, etc) were what made this story special to me.
I disagreed rather vehemently with its morals
The story improves somewhat if you view its often conservative and moralistic narrative as that of the protagonist herself (though there’s still the problem of individuals being able to change the AI’s rules simply by talking to it).
[..] Caroline was an old soul, whose whole worldview was turned upside down by the singularity. She could not find a new purpose for herself in the new reality. Her whole life was about hard work and sacrifices. That’s what she got off in her pre-change life. She denied herself simple pleasures and instead poured all of her energy into rising kids, helping out the community and etc. That was the only thing that gave her a sense of accomplishment – hard work and self-sacrifice were her go-to drug. She was one of these people I wrote about here. No hobbies, no interests, no imagination. She seems like the kind of person who would dread the weekend, and purposefully fill it with with mind numbing household chores, rather than sitting down, enjoying the life and doing something creative with her time.
But, in the new post singularity world she couldn’t even do that. Why do you think she kept her personal space featureless and empty? You could argue that this was because of some sort of rebellion against Prime Intellect’s rules but personally I think she just didn’t have it in her to design something interesting. She was just dull as a brick.
What’s the only time in the whole novel when Caroline is happy? It is at the end when she is doing back breaking work, and playing village mom passing down moral judgment on her offspring from up high, censoring their access to knowledge for their own good. Caroline is the kind of person I would hate in real life: dull, ignorant, self-important, holier-than thou, busy body. Fuck her, and the high horse she rode in on.
Caroline and her ilk are just not wired for post-singularity life. They would probably never adapt. Nor should they be forced to.
But some people can and will adapt. The novel even contains passages that suggest that not all inhabitants of the virch-world were as jarred and disillusioned as Caroline. For example, what about the 20-something kid that challenged her in the first chapter? What about all the other kids that were born after the change and never even knew a world without immortality could even exit? Are they just as bored and sick of their lives as Caroline? I doubt it.
u/Newfur [+7] Crazy like a fox. Literally. (a day later)
Caroline wrecks the world and murders uncounted billions and the author's tone implies that they find this a good thing.
u/localroger [+15] (a day later)
Only about half my readers came to the conclusion that the end of chapter 7 was literally real. The other half assume it's a put-on job by PI, and that the rest of Cyberspace chugs on along. I was deliberately vague about that but it's surprising how strongly people seem to be attracted to one interpretation or the other.
In any case, since I've promised a sequel (even though its muse remains stubbornly slow) the put-on job is canon according to some guy who wrote the thing.
u/Kishoto [+2] (a day later)
Wait...are you the author of that story?! Or am I reading this post incorrectly? O_O
u/localroger [+4] (2 days later)
Yeah, I wrote it. I do try to keep my claws retracted and refrain from breathing fire in polite company... :-)
In all seriousness I was in a very bad mood and going through what most people would call a mid-life crisis when I wrote MOPI in 1994. But what made it possible to tell a post-singularity story was the recognition that conflict can and inevitably will still occur even when all physical want is satisfied. A universe where it's all honey and ice cream might be more fun to imagine, but you can't tell stories about it that are interesting in any meaningful way.
u/Kishoto [+3] (2 days later)
To me, the frustration that Caroline had with the falsity of her new life could've been expanded on in a way that wasn't so very much torture porn.
Again, I do not mind gratuitous torture/violence if it serves some sort of purpose. It's just that the entire Death Games thing (while a very novel concept, of that there is no question) seemed a bit over the top. Very descriptive and well written but it just didn't really seem to have any purpose other than to make us go Ewww. We could've skipped all of the Death Games stuff and still been left with the same core story, that of a woman hunting down the creator of PI because she didn't find value in a life without work. Caroline's frustration/lack of satisfaction with her newfound life wasn't emphasized or fleshed out with the Death Games thing. At least, from my perspective.
Again, I must stress: I have no problem with content like this. It simply felt very detached and unrelated from the rest of the story. It didn't impact Caroline's character (which was that of a pragmatic, intelligent, frustrated old woman that couldn't really be bothered with that gosh darned new fangled technology) in any meaningful sense, unless you count the almost obligatory weirdness levels I need to attribute to her for being into that sort of stuff.
That being said, however, I have read MOPI at least twice and I do find it to be an overall enjoyable story, for all that I pray the conclusion is simulated and that a real friendly AI wouldn't be dumb enough to shackle its very core being onto the approval of a single individual. Or would, through becoming said friendly AI, become smart enough to remove said shackle. I enjoy the premise and find that it's a very interesting tale, my criticism aside. In fact, it's been a while since my last read through and this discussion has reignited my interest. I may go read it again.
u/localroger [+8] (3 days later)
I appreciate your viewpoint; you're far from the first to put it that way.
I really do not think there is anything like fault here, either for my story to rub you a bit the wrong way or for you not to "get" it. I have received thousands of emails and seen hundreds of reviews and comments on the web about my story since putting it up, and there is a broad mix of responses. I am frankly a little astonished that anyone likes it at all, but a lot of people do. I was definitely not trying to make anyone happy when I wrote it. But what I am pretty sure I did right was representing some major themes about technology and futurism, some of which have never really been portrayed well before. There have been a few films, but how popular or well received were Zardoz or Vanilla Sky? In mainstream (as in non self published) written fiction everyone talks about Accelerando (really, the cats did it?) and Singularity Sky (um, no) and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (great, I am closest to the great enfant terrible of mainstream SF).
I understand that not everyone will like it and that many will hate it; I actually thought at lot more would hate it than seem to. But if you see the themes, and they get you thinking, and you think about it hard enough to have an opinion about the ending, then I feel the story did what I meant it to. I really never meant it to make anyone feel good and to this day I find it a bit strange that it is so well received. But yes, it's disturbing and frightening and anyone sane hopes it will not go down quite like that.
If you are praying that the ending was simulated you have your answer; as the author I have years ago declared that it is, in order to make way for the sequel I really do intend to write eventually, when my muse gets off the crapper. Prime Intellect wasn't that badly built; after all, Lawrence surely wasn't that bad of a programmer if he made it work at all, and Caroline for all her ferocity is no AI engineer. But two of its most favorite humans just tried to kill it and that may have driven PI to radically alter some other interpretations of how to apply the Three Laws.
Stay tuned!
u/Kishoto [+1] (3 days later)
Oh there's word of a sequel! I had no idea! I suppose I'll keep an eye out for it. That's exciting :D
u/localroger [+2] (3 days later)
In fairness, you probably shouldn't hold your breath; I've been meaning to write it and struggling with making it work for over a decade, but I DO intend to finish it. My wife runs a site at passagesinthevoid.com (named for my second best online work) where news will probably pop first.
u/Kishoto [+1] (3 days later)
Woah. A decade is a solid chunk of time. Haha, ok, no breath holding.
I'll just place a little post it note in the back of my mind :P
u/Kishoto [+0] (2 days later)
To me, the frustration that Caroline had with the falsity of her new life could've been expanded on in a way that wasn't so very much torture porn.
Again, I do not mind gratuitous torture/violence if it serves some sort of purpose. It's just that the entire Death Games thing (while a very novel concept, of that there is no question) seemed a bit over the top. Very descriptive and well written but it just didn't really seem to have any purpose other than to make us go Ewww. We could've skipped all of the Death Games stuff and still been left with the same core story, that of a woman hunting down the creator of PI because she didn't find value in a life without work. Caroline's frustration/lack of satisfaction with her newfound life wasn't emphasized or fleshed out with the Death Games thing. At least, from my perspective.
Again, I must stress: I have no problem with content like this. It simply felt very detached and unrelated from the rest of the story. It didn't impact Caroline's character (which was that of a pragmatic, intelligent, frustrated old woman that couldn't really be bothered with that gosh darned new fangled technology) in any meaningful sense, unless you count the almost obligatory weirdness levels I need to attribute to her for being into that sort of stuff.
That being said, however, I have read MOPI at least twice and I do find it to be an overall enjoyable story, for all that I pray the conclusion is simulated and that a real friendly AI wouldn't be dumb enough to shackle its very core being onto the approval of a single individual. Or would, through becoming said friendly AI, become smart enough to remove said shackle. I enjoy the premise and find that it's a very interesting tale, my criticism aside. In fact, it's been a while since my last read through and this discussion has reignited my interest. I may go read it again.
u/rictic [+2] (2 days later)
localroger is one of the most approachable and down to earth authors I've seen on the web.
u/Newfur [+2] Crazy like a fox. Literally. (a day later)
Oh, cool! When I read it, I assumed that the end of Chapter 7 was literally real and was kind of upset because there's no way that a basically omnipotent AI would fall for something that stupid. Sorry I didn't give you enough credit!
u/I_broke_a_chair [+1] (4 months later)
RemindMe! 1 year
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u/rineSample [+1] (40 minutes later)
Besides MOPI, what would you recommend as a halfway-decent rationalist singularity fic to people who haven't read rational fiction before? (As much as we all love it, I wouldn't recommend recommending Friendship is Optimal, because a lot of people would be turned off by what fandom it's associated with.)
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+5] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
Go with the original. Marooned In Realtime.
u/None [+3] (59 minutes later)
See, that's a really hard question, because Singularities are, by their nature, not rational (they're supra-rational). Most stories have to contend with writing about their ascension process or it's after effects.
But some interesting reading would be Accelerando, Rainbow's End, and Questionable Content.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (4 hours later)
Seconding Accelerando, and I want to add Rapture of the Nerds as the only ad-hoc singularity I've seen in text.
Oh, and since we're posting singularity webcomics, Free Fall is neat.
u/trekie140 [+2] (22 hours later)
Freefall isn't really about the singularity, but it does tackle a lot of interesting questions about human-level artificial intelligence in ways I haven't seen before. It's also the only story I've read so far that has an engineer for a protagonist.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Rapture of the Nerds is basically the only Singularity novel that isn't about destroying the world with noob mistakes, so that's a major plus.
u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
[removed]
u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (19 hours later)
There's some story arcs that deal with AI and the nature of personhood (did you notice the sentient robot in Comic #1?). I wouldn't call it a singularitarian comic, but it is science fiction.
u/gvsmirnov [+3] (18 hours later)
Way more than halfway decent is the Jean Le Flambeur trilogy. It's actually pretty much brilliant, the best hard sci-fi I've read.
Simulations within simulations, warring post-singularity gods, distributed quantum hive minds, von Neumann missiles, Dilemma Prisons for reforming criminals, you name it!
u/narfanator [+1] (3 hours later)
Rapture of the Nerds is pretty good, too. Doctorow brings the ornery, Stross brings the singularity.
u/Kishoto [+1] (a day later)
I read and thought it was an interesting concept as well. And I agree that the torture porn didn't really DO anything for the overarching story, other than provide levels of squick that years of trolling the internet has made me mostly immune to. I'm fine with squick, squick away, but if it's gratuitous, I'd like it to be for a reason. You could cut out all of the torture porn from that story and be left with pretty much the same story.
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (6 minutes later)
... holy crap, I feel like this subreddit has suddenly become danbooru :p
(nsfw, google that at your own risks)
u/callmebrotherg [+9] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (21 minutes later)
Rationalbooru
u/xamueljones [+6] My arch-enemy is entropy (10 hours later)
Link for anyone who needs it.
u/Revisional_Sin [+2] (15 hours later)
But why?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Slaaneshis gonna Slaanesh, unfortunately. We try to make them stop by force, but they like that.