Story of a superhuman security robot/cyborg learning to pretend to be human.
What I liked about it is that they have a sentient spaceship, and there is an additional robot/cyborg that is freed.
While this still has several action sequences it is more based on character development.
I feel somewhat ripped off though, in the sense that Amazon said this book is 160 pages (novel length), but it’s actually only 33 thousand words (novella length). It also cost over $8, so I’m rather hesitant to get the next one.
Though I probably will read the rest of the novella series before the novel comes out in 2020.
There is slim pickings for people like me that like scifi stories about robots. I would have given it a four stars but the lack of DRM boosts it by an extra star so it’s back at 5.
This is a Hugo and Nebula award winning novella!
A “robot” gains sentience and independence while saving it’s crew from certain death numerous times.
My main gripe with this novella is that the “robot” is more accurately described as a cyborg, since they are comprised of inorganic and organic (cloned human) parts. There are also augmented humans in the book which are a less extreme form of cyborg. However the book makes up for this superficial problem by having a markedly different cognitive experience for the robot, and being robot point of view.
It has decent immersion, and is rather to the point with minimum frills and character development, but I read it for the robots. But the ebook is cheap so can’t gripe about the conciseness of this novella.
It had be gripping and tense, masterfully crafted scenes.
So I would give it 4 and a half stars, and an extra star for being available without DRM!
So I simply downloaded it and made it into an hour and half long audio book,
listened to it while putting the kids to bed.
Newton was one of the most respected of the analysts, able to build bridges between seemingly unrelated memory stores and thus synthesize meaning from a soup of chaotic data.
A well done short film story, highlighting the dangers of fully autonomous killing machines. About 8 minutes.
Commentary:
Like most scifi there is pro-innovation bias (not considering the weaknesses), and a disregard for the evolutionary arms race. So while our drone technology is improving, so is our drone killing technology. There are already an array of various drone killing “guns” which use frequency hacks or otherwise to kill drones. Instead of everyone shielding their homes, it would be just as viable to have drone patrols, that would kill any uncertified drones.
It may even be possible to have something akin to a “force field” (some kind of wifi), which would jam drones, thus disabling their swarming behaviour.
Can even have coocoo drones, that would pretend to be a swarm member, and say they did all the kills, and so the others would return.
The list of possible counter-measures is really endless, just as any kind of evolutionary arms race.
In terms of autonomous weapons, as Eray talks about below, it doesn’t stop terrorists or foreign interests. And you’d need to have significant level of autonomy for the counter-measures to be effective.
Here is some commentary by Eray Ozkural, an expert in AI:
“Sure, we could build such bots, but the scenario is absurd. Would banning any kind of weapon control system prevent terrorists from using it? That itself is a basic error of this film. It says nothing useful, except for attacking a straw man argument about autonomous military drones, that autonomous AI agents would make far more effective, humane, or preferable weapons — which I do not believe anyone has made in earnest. In other words, it is an attempt to associate AI with “unethical weapons”. We know that weapons are unethical, already. Thus, saying they could be used for an evil purpose changes nothing. The film wishes to go one step further, making AI-equipped military drones a class of weapons that are analogous to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, weapons that should be illegal under Geneva conventions or equivalent, and hoping to make a big fuss about it all. And further drawing a false dichotomy saying that anyone who does not agree with our scenario is defending these terrible, evil AI’s that we imagined, as is typical of their world-saving charade.”
Industrial Revolution 4.0 is all about custom product production,
localities often provide incentives for local production.
don’t have to pay customs or tariffs.
Can produce factories in one area and then ship them to places with high demand or good margins.
Investing Capital
I’m thinking what to do once become a multi-millionaire (billionaire) as a result of AGI development?
It is good to plan these things out, so am not shocked by huge amounts of
money and trivial goals. Some people when they get rich, spend money on
trivial things, such as the nouveau riche, brand names and extravagant
living. Me, no, there is a long-term plan ahead, and must stay focused.
Robots will be our new bodies which we can reincarnate into in future incarnations,
and thus allow us to live in near areas and explore them with bodies adapted to them.
A Home for Robots
To create a home for robots, have to find niches which are not inhabited
by humans, “out of sight, out of mind” as the saying goes.
On Earth all the land is claimed, even though some parts are uninhabited.
Land is something many humans feel very strongly about. Even small rocks sticking out of the water, get nations riled up.
Underwater though, the deeper and farther from shore, the less it matters to
humans. And 200km off shore is international waters.
A Submarine Factory
The basic idea is a concrete submarine, with all the tools inside necessary to make robots, and those robots could make new submarines.
For the actual submarine will need various tools on board, such as an electron beam lithography system (to make nanoscale chips), a smelt (to refine raw minerals), a 3d printer, CNC machine, wire pullers and the like.
So this will likely be a very large, cruise-ship, or cargo-ship size submarine.
For instance could find some hot vent, and put some power generators on it to supply the submarine with electricity.
Could also mine the area for raw minerals which are to be smelted into the required substances for creating more robots.
Additionally these submarines could sell both the raw minerals, or some refined version in exchange for other things which may be easier to get on the international market. Such as high speed internet access in the middle of the ocean.
They could also supply or help with surface seasteads which have humans on board, the humans could provide a plausible cover for their operations, and be proof that these are human-friendly robots. They could also have the satelite dishes for the internet, and the bottom of the surface seasteads would turn it into directed sonar signals, or via a hard line to the ocean floor robot base.
I’m interested in maps of the mineral and energy resources of the ocean.
Perhaps there are some particular areas with high concentrations, such as near fault lines.
Incremental Growth
I’m thinking I’ll have to start by bootstrapping my business, by making a robot factory on land. Probably the focus would be on high quality custom robots, either singles or small batches.
Then would start a ship building company, producing autonomous water-taxis, ferries, luxury boats and then cargo carriers, possibly also seasteads if there is a market for them.
The idea would be to maximize the automation of the design and building both the robots and boats. One of the biggest challenges to ferro-cement boat creation is high cost of human labour. If it was replaced by robot labour then it could make them affordable to produce.
For the robot factory, I’m thinking can structure it like a fish, raw materials would come in one end, and robots (and waste) would come out the other. The robots could then repair the factory and supply it with resources.
High Pressure
Since no humans are necessary on board, could probably keep a high pressure atmosphere inside, especially when diving to great depths, any gas we pump in at those pressures (~40MPa or ~400atm) will be supercritical, so probably best to stick with nitrogen which is abundant and inert. also can make nitrogen and nitride steels and other metals, which are less prone to corrosion than their carbon cousins.
Can have other supercritical gases in other areas for processes that require it.
Though initially I’m guessing it would be simplest to start with not the bottom of the ocean, like above 300m, or 500m if using krypton or xenon.
Another possibility is maintaining the main temperature under 30C, then can fill the hull with liquid CO2 or liquid NO2, though CO2 would probably much easier to acquire in quantity. That way don’t have to deal with the unusual properties of supercritical fluids. The problem with using a liquid is that it might mix with the water when going in or out of the ship.
Are there any hydrothermal vents (or other power sources) above 300m depth? but outside the EEZ? they could be good starting points, while researching the effects of supercritical fluids on a robot factory.
has to be able to raise out of the water so only just over 2m is below waterline. can be a max of 5m tall, 5m wide, and ~40m long. That is a tight squeeze for a robot factory.
However here in Owen Sound (North American, Great Lakes) we have larger boats, so presumably they can get to the Atlantic Ocean and back. For example there is the Algoma Olympic, It is 223m by 23m, and 7.6m deep https://www.fleetmon.com/vessels/algoma-olympic_7432783_48499/
It seems the Welland Canal is the limiting factor, but it is big enough to fit those boats.
That kind of size should be sufficient for a robot factory.
Con
For a submarine we can probably have it half submerged for canals, so it could be 14m high.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
Robot Science Fiction Magazine 