8.0 KiB
AI in Rational Fiction
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Author: u/flipflopchip *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8sbg5v/ai_in_rational_fiction/
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Score: 33
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Created: 2018-06-19T18:57:24
Post:
Hi, I'm Not sure if this is the correct place to put this, please point out a better place if one exists in this subreddit.
I'm wondering if any rational fiction exists which use AI as "Precisely Bound Demons"? The idea of demons has always fascinated me ever since I read Stroud's Bartimaeus Sequence as a kid. (BTW, any other recommendations?)
It seems like using one or more AI machines for a similar purpose is too obvious an idea not to be already done.
Given exceptional intellect, photographic memory, and whatever else future programmers decide to put in, AI could make an potent servant if well controlled.
It also feels like an ideal setting for rational fiction, where the interesting beings are pure mind, and maybe most humans would be less mindful in time. (The same way I still remember my best friend's phonenumber from highschool, but struggle to recall my wife's today).
Perhaps the AIs are playing a long con and some human realizes?
This fictional world could also effectively demonstrate AI related risks in a way that might convince people to care.
I'm an ineffective writer, so can't really do it myself, which is why I'm hoping something similar has already been done.
If not, would people like to discuss it hear?
Thanks.
Comments:
u/xamueljones [+6] My arch-enemy is entropy (8 hours later)
There is Crystal Society which has an AI as the main protagonist.
u/PanickedApricott [+6] (9 hours later)
friendship is optimal?
u/vikhik [+6] (13 hours later)
I'm a huge fan of Ra, although it's not exactly rational, it's very adjacent.
u/eroticas [+10] (2 hours later)
Funny you should say that
https://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/2y56qg/precisely_bound_demons_and_their_behavior/
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+7] (4 hours later)
Pretty sure that post was what the OP was asking for similar works to.
u/Ibbot [+2] (8 hours later)
Did he ever do anything with that?
u/eroticas [+4] (10 hours later)
not to my knowledge
u/Ibbot [+1] (10 hours later)
Thanks!
u/HeckDang [+6] (13 hours later)
There's an AI character in Worm (spoiler so I won't say the name) that I think is represented fairly well. Exactly how it's bound is a little bit handwavey but the story makes enough of the right noises that it kept my suspension of disbelief well intact. As far as representations of AI go I honestly think it's one of the better I've seen, despite it acting fairly "human".
u/Croktopus [+7] (an hour later)
Worth the Candle, sort of. Devils are basically AI with all the social components, demons are AI with all the physics components.
Though that's all analogies and none of it is explicitly stated
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+20] (4 hours later)
- I think that might be reaching a bit; devils being cunning and demons strong is a fairly common trope - D&D is a prominent instance of this - and they don't have much to do with AI.
@OP, it's not especially about precisely bound demons except in a very general sense, but Friendship is Optimal and its fanfic are about AI risk.
u/Croktopus [+1] (5 hours later)
It might be reaching a bit sure. But when you look at the way the devil powers are specifically described, it sounds a lot like the AI in a box thought experiment. Could just be pattern matching though.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (6 hours later)
They're at least partly what I had in mind when writing it, especially with regards to the "don't even let them talk, just kill them" policy, but there are a few quirks and differences.
If you're interested, I also wrote Boxed In, which is a short story that takes the AI box thought experiment as its prompt.
u/Croktopus [+2] (7 hours later)
I think I've read almost all of your stuff lol (3 things I haven't gotten to yet). Then again, who knows how many other names you have...
u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (5 hours later)
And this part of WtC totally went over my head.
u/Croktopus [+1] (5 hours later)
I might be reading a bit into it though lol. Just kinda felt right when I was thinking about it the other day
u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (5 hours later)
Yeah I don't know if it was intended.
u/HeckDang [+2] (13 hours later)
I don't see this at all.
u/waylandertheslayer [+2] (3 days later)
Oddly enough, I came across a short story that almost perfectly fits the questions you're asking a few weeks ago: For the Taking. It's about demons that are safe to summon as long as you don't let them talk to you, because they can convince people to sell them their souls.
u/PsychoLife [+4] (20 minutes later)
The Gam3 uses this extensively, its a intergalactic mmo to which the winner gets real life influence in governments, economy, etc. AI are used as player assistance, there are rogue AI, admin AIs and even a game within a game with AI and it all ties into the plot. The MC AI is a special plot point as well so I won't spoil that.
Edit: There is also a super duper secret faction of Rogue AIs, MC becomes a Rogue Machine Lord or something like that for his class, and starts to specialize in synchronization between AI and human Mind. Only bad thing is no updates since last November.
u/Croktopus [+1] (5 hours later)
It's a very minor element of the story (well, pretty major, but it's not brought up that much), but Threadbare might be satisfactory. Trying not to spoil though
u/vimefer [+1] (2 days later)
I'm currently working on a short story involving a turnkey spam filter appliance that turns out to be WAY smarter than intended, and starts interpreting its mission of keeping the company working smoothly with minimal waste of IT resources quite literally and extensively, in all manner of creative ways. Much of the plot revolves around how its own Blue/Orange morality-based motives interplay with people trying to just achieve their professional goals and figure out WTF is happening at the office. Think "Dilbert meets ARIIA".
The thing is, it's never sentient or conscious in the general sense, just very very very effective and creative in the ways it can interact with its surroundings in order to achieve its goal: it is absolutely resolute and focused on it. I'd say the most difficult aspect of designing such a "character" is that it does not really do any ethical calculations, especially not utilitarian. It has absolutely no self-awareness and no survival intent and does not model its own future presence or absence or plan around any future change of its own mode of operation. It's more like it has a very short set of negative-deontological axioms, where it must absolutely squash some specific actions and intents it can detect. Which means it can model those actions and behaviours, and twist them after its own motives. Which implies it can learn to model people after observing them long enough.
It makes for "fun" development of "character", as it can develop or acquire new capacities and powers that make sense in context at any plot-convenient rate. And you can also revert / reset those capacities when someone reboots or restores factory settings on the appliance because it's acting out. In this specific case, it starts rewriting emails and planning team meetings on its own, then learns how to do perfectly-efficient spear-phishing... all to reorganize corporate activity in ways that align with its own goals (incidentally causing AND solving all kinds of human and social issues along).