@[email protected] (on Mastodon)

Sci-fi writer & software engineering lecturer. He/him.

@[email protected]

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

A robotic child’s impossibly human-like AI is the key to humanity’s salvation, or annihilation.

"Nova Sapiens: The Believers" is available in audiobook, ebook and paperback.
https://t.co/3P6hAB23iK
https://t.co/LCg8otyuww https://t.co/kjiWdRPyQI
#NovaSapiens #robots #scifi

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

1/ Just want to put this news in plain language for people.

Senior people at Twitter have resigned in the last 48 hours. We now now why. They said in private Slack channels that @elonmusk is so desperate to recoup his money, he’s taking crazy risks with YOUR privacy and safety.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

@attentive There is a (simplistic) logic to the idea that, since evolution would naturally use all the tools it has access to, non-computability in physics might imply to non-computable brains.

But I gather that wavefunction collapse happens too easily in brains, due to heat.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

Here's some words I wrote on Roger Penrose's "Shadows of the Mind", on the argument about whether strong #AI is possible.

https://t.co/DSlXts74Pu

(I'm re-posting this after my last site suddenly imploded.)

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

@attentive I really liked ENM up until the last chapter, which was indeed very hand-wavy. I basically just took Penrose at his word regarding wavefunction collapse, because what do I know? (I'd already understood from others that it was a deeply weird and unresolved issue.)

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

Oh my, the Apple ecosystem seems to be turning into another ad hellscape. I wonder how long they can last like this.
https://t.co/i62ieRea8U

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

Penrose is wrong, and you could have worked that out from what everyone else has said about this book, but I wanted to get in on the game as well.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

I wrote some words on Roger Penrose's "Shadows of the Mind", because I like arguments about #AI, even if they are 28 years old.

https://t.co/ypVpPvTUzQ

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

There isn't (AFAIK) a desperate need for more conscripts in the defence forces, so this must be a more general labour scheme. Anyone able to operate a keyboard could be put to work doing *something*.

And surely the richer you are, the more you've got to give back to society.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

Decrepit old white guys are debating the introduction of 12 months of mandatory #nationalservice for school leavers, and they're clearly suffering from Relevance Deprivation Syndrome.

(thread)

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

However, my question is: why school leavers? Why not rich, entitled, ex-politicians and media personalities? WHY NOT?

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

This covers most themes I'm aware of in AI science fiction. And they're all wrong. But also they're all right, to some degree.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

Some collected thoughts on #AI in hard #scifi, particularly in #NovaSapiens.

https://t.co/5FD8i7Uulh

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

I thought I should briefly explore the various attitudes towards #AGI (artificial general intelligence) and #AI consciousness, as I see it:
* Scepticism
* Utopianism
* Doomerism
* Anthropomorphism
* Unknowabilism (I made up this word)

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

I'll be at the WordsOut Indie Author Showcase, running at the Darlington Arts Festival on 5-6 November, along with other WA-based authors.

Looking forward to making a fool of myself in public! It'll be great, and books will be sold!

https://t.co/HcVIFcV9R2

[Ronni🧂Salt-WhoWroteGunnawahYeahThatOne @RonniSalt]

“There absolutely needs to be a royal commission into what happened at Lismore.

I saw grad mets barely off course in charge of things they would never have been in charge of up until that point.

Lismore happened right in the short-staffing period"

▫️
https://t.co/iov0U37LQw

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

The Kindle app is advertising my own book to me (#NovaSapiens) and I'm touched by whatever emotionless algorithm has decided to do this, but also umm...

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

@EthereaMagazine Indeed! There are often cryptic references to past events from months or years ago, which could just as easily be completely made up as anything else.

[@[email protected] (on Mastodon) @davidjacooper]

@EthereaMagazine I like to come in at around step 17, after so much accumulated confusion that any honest attempt to explain what's actually happening is indistinguishable from sadistic mockery.

[Pat Kane @thoughtland]

Sorry, but I completely admire her for this position (& her eloquence). The kind of feminist that schooled me in the 80s, for which I am forever grateful. Bravo, Nicola: