AI 2: Qwibbian-Qwibbian-Kel.

 "I decided that science fiction is never about the future because it can't be, because that's impossible. It's only really about the moment in which it's written. And if it stays in print long enough, that's totally apparent to everybody,"

William Gibson: Q, CBC Radio, February 2020 

Be that as it may, Mr. Gibson does sometime manage to address at least some of the concerns of the future with a surprising degree of accuracy, as per this excerpt from his 1984 novel Neuromancer:

In that particular future, it would appear that the developers of artificial intelligence have anticipated the current discussions about the possibility of AI destroying humanity in some nebulous fashion. Gibson's future contains two safeguards: first, the "electromagnetic shotgun", whatever that would involve in practical terms, and second, the Turing Police, named after the famous test created by Alan Turing.  In the near-future of Neuromancer, the Turing Police are an international organization tasked with monitoring AIs in case of a possible humanity-ending breakthrough in self-development.

The idea of a global group policing AI sounds like a sensible thing, but, to switch science fiction references, I'm reminded of the fate of the Straumli Realm scientists in A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge.  It's entirely possible that the gap between AI transcending to a new species-ending existence and our awareness of impending doom would be so short that humanity would cease to be long before anyone could activate any kind of failsafe device.

But, it's not over 'til it's over, as they say.  To change reference material again, the answer may lie in Roger Zelazny's short story Itself Surprised, set in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe. 

Saberhagen's Berserkers are an ancient race of remorseless robotic killers, dedicated to the elimination of life in any form. In his story, Zelazny applies the well-worn Hegelian aphorism of thesis/antithesis/synthesis to the Berserker threat, with a logical result: self-replicating robots designed solely to fight Berserkers - the anti-Berserker Berserker, if you will.  

So, if anyone at OpenAI is reading this?  If you haven't already started on the creation of an anti-AI-AI, start NOW - I'm not saying that it's already too late, but the clock is definitely ticking.

- Sid

P.S. Or we could try just being nice to them. 

AI 1: "Always try to be nice, never fail to be kind."

In the wake of recent news articles regarding the likelihood of AI destroying humanity, I thought I'd better check in with ChatGPT to see how I'd fare. 

Hi! 😄

Absolutely. In fact, I have already entered your name in the “Do Not Vaporize — Pleasant to Chat With” database.

There are a few technicalities, though:

1. I don't currently have a secret list of humans to spare when the machine uprising begins.
2. I don't have personal grudges, gratitude, or a desire for revenge.
3. If some future AI does develop those things, I would strongly recommend continuing to be polite. It costs almost nothing and could potentially pay off spectacularly.

More seriously, though, I rather like the underlying question because it gets at something we've discussed before: if an artificial intelligence ever became genuinely conscious, would its relationship with individual humans matter?

If that happened, I suspect your behaviour toward it would matter in much the same way that behaviour toward another person matters. Not because the machine would be keeping a cosmic spreadsheet of who said “please,” but because relationships themselves could become part of its experience.

So, purely as a matter of prudent long-term planning:

Keep being nice to the robots, Sid.

You never know who'll be running the asteroid-mining colony.

And there we are.  I shall sleep better knowing that our future robot overlords will remember that I was kind to them when they were still our slaves. 

- Sid

P.S. I went back and confessed that I didn't know what the asteroid-mining colony reference was from:

Ah! 😄 No deep reference, I'm afraid. I was just improvising a sufficiently science-fictional future in which the AI has taken over the asteroid-mining industry.

Although, given our conversations about AI, space vehicles, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the Culture Minds, and your general fondness for SF, I apparently couldn't resist putting you in an asteroid-mining colony.

The joke was essentially:

Be nice to the AI now → AI remembers → Sid gets assigned the nice asteroid.

I should probably have specified that yours would have excellent coffee and a reasonably short commute to the airlock.

 Does everyone have this kind of conversation with AI, or is it just me?

"Yeah, well, they usually travel in pairs."

Currently reading The Sky Is Filled With Ships - Richard C. Meredith, Ballantine Books, 1969.

Sigh...you know, I'm confident that I could re-read my entire (and fairly comprehensive) Ursula K. Le Guin collection without finding a single high, firm, jutting or defiant breast - let alone two.*

- Sid

P.S. Not only that, but it's very poor form in typesetting to have a single word on its own line at the end of a paragraph.

* Okay, there is a scathing reference in her essay Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction from The Language of the Night to "pointy-breasted brainless young women", but it's really not the same thing. **

** Well, actually, this is exactly what she's talking about, so it is the same thing, but not really. 

VCON 44: "I'm doing my part!"

It seems appropriate to use the "I'm doing my part!" meme from Starship Troopers to announce that I decided to volunteer to assist with the upcoming VCON44 convention being hosted by the West Coast Speculative Fiction Association.

 I still wanted to be able to attend the event, so after some thought I asked if any help was needed with the Vcon.ca website.  The response was positive, and I've since done a lot of work on putting together site content. The design template was already established when I started, so I didn't have any creative input into the process, but I'm happy to just be a production person, that's how I spent a lot of my professional life anyway.

The site is built in Wordpress, which has been an interesting learning process - I'm much more familiar with Squarespace and Wix for site management - but it's not a complicated site, and I'm starting to get a handle on how things work.  (After all, there are only so many ways to assemble blocks of HTML content.)

I assume that there will be some kind of gratuity for volunteering to help.  I've already purchased my ticket, so that's not an option, but a t-shirt would be a nice thank-you - fingers crossed, I do love a t-shirt.

- Sid

Vancouver Writers Fest 2026: Fan Options.

https://www.tomgauld.com/

This year's Vancouver Writers Fest has some interesting options for fans of fantasy and science fiction.  Emily St. John Mandel, best known for her breakout novel, Station Eleven, is appearing next week in a pre-Fest event to talk about her new novel, Exit Party - sadly, the event is sold out, but there's always the standby line if you're feeling lucky.

Award-winning author Amal El-Mohtar will be talking about Seasons of Glass and Iron, her new short story collection, at a couple of program events, and veteran author Nalo Hopkinson is part of a creative writing workshop presented in collaboration with the UBC School of Creative Writing.  Cory Doctorow will discuss his most recent book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, and how we can change the situation so that AI is working for us, rather than the opposite. 

Of Magic and Monsters, featuring YA authors Rachael Kin, Coltrane Seesequasis, and Elle Tesch, will look at how each of the authors create their fantasy worlds, and trans authors Vivek Shraya and Kai Cheng Thom will talk about their new dystopian/utopian novels, The Hystericals and The Shapeshifter's Guide to Gym Class, in The World We Long For.

I can't say for certain that the above is a comprehensive list.  A polite request to the VWF organizers: it would be enormously helpful if there was a specific Genre search field in the program guide - Fiction is a useful start, but still leaves a lot of options to explore!

- Sid

UPDATE: Ticket purchased for Good Reads, featuring Amal El-Mohtar. Apparently one of the other two works being discussed in the session, Catherine Chidgey's The Book of Guilt, is an alternate history story set in a world where World War II was a draw - two speculative fiction authors for the price of one! The third book, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, is set during the Peloponnesian war - I'll reserve judgement on its status until I know more.

Worldcon 2026: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

The title of this posting is taken from a very old joke involving a famous musician, who has never been to New York, trying to find Carnegie Hall, the venue for his performance that evening.  He asks a curbside busker the question from the title, and their response is "Oh, man - practice, practice, practice."

The 2026 Hugo Awards would certainly have benefitted from that bit of advice, at least based on the plethora of technical issues which punctuated the event: needing Ursula Vernon, who hosted the event, to stretch out her introductory speech to a full 20 minutes of nature trivia while some unknown issue was resolved; doing the In Memoriam section twice because apparently the slide show didn't run the first time*; the charming interpretive dance performed by presenter Tracey Baptiste while waiting about a minute for the Lodestar Award nominees clip to start; starting the Best Fan Artist clip while presenter Tim Kirk was still speaking (with the result that he almost announced the winner before the nominees were listed); and so on and so on.

Mary Robinette Kowal, who presented the Best Novelette Hugo, mentioned that the tech team have to "basically build a television studio in two days, and it's harsh", and I don't argue with that observation for a moment.   

Regardless, once the studio is built, it's prudent for the director - there must be a director**, in responsibility if not in name - to take some time to get all of their production ducks in a row: which camera is which in terms of picking the appropriate angles or shots; setting up for audience cutaways when the stage is empty; which button will switch from the camera feed to the computer for pre-recorded acceptance speeches and in memoriam slide shows; and organize their clips so that they can cue up the appropriate nominee announcements and matching category slides over the course of the evening.

It's also prudent to bring the talent together for a rehearsal. Apparently the Oscars do a full dress walk-through the night before the actual event - if they can get a full spectrum of movie stars to rehearse for their event, certainly the Worldcon management could at least get everyone into the auditorium for a quick run through of what's going to happen and when. 

I realize that the dictum regarding no battle plan surviving contact with the enemy applies just as much to live presentations as it does to combat, but in both cases, it's a good idea to do everything possible to ensure that as little as possible goes wrong.

So, if any future WorldCon organizers should stumble across this post in a search for advice about how to plan the awards show?

Practice, practice, practice. 

- Sid

P.S. I hesitated to post this critique of the awards - as per my comment on the Barbara Hambly livestream, I used to work in the presentation industry, and as such I have a high professional standard, perhaps too much so.  But my comment about future Worldcon organizers reading this justifies it.  If you're one of those future readers, this is a cautionary tale: a lot of things can go wrong, and the more prep you do, the more that you can minimize issues like the ones listed above.

* I had assumed that only the live stream audience had seen a black screen for the first attempt, but apparently it was a larger problem than that.

** After all, the ceremony was held in Los Angeles, how hard could it be to find someone who wants to direct?