The rare author whose all published work I’ve read - partly because he’s not very prolific. His careful approach to writing makes almost every story special, and there are very few of them I’d consider subpar.
He’s similarly thoughtful in his interviews, and provides much-needed nuance to the recent AI discourse here. Was pleasantly surprised to learn he’s skeptical of the singularity and ML hype.
This sci-fi writer seems to get a lot of air time where people interview him about AI. I think these people, in trusting him to know how AI works, may have forgotten how to distinguish fiction and reality. It's like thinking you can learn business lessons from watching Mad Men.
His main problem is that he's essentially doing one of those "tech won't save us and we need to overthrow capitalism" arguments; people just don't accept problems can be fixed unless that solution somehow punishes an evildoer. It's not true though, tech is going to save us and we'll just keep on being vaguely unhappy about this.
> people just don't accept problems can be fixed unless that solution somehow punishes an evildoer.
Add to that the tendency of most people to always try avoiding benign suffering, at first, before reflecting or doing any thinking, before being forced to some much worse and unevitable suffering, that they could have been avoiding. Some special and crass sort of shortsightedness we probably carry in our genes.
I wish we'd already individually and collectively evolved beyond that.
I have been ranting about the world losing their ability to distinguish between fiction and reality for quite a while. It isn't even a problem limited to them. You see people unironically citing fictional movies as "proof" because it supports their argument. It is peak bullshit in the "does not care about the truth just what supports their argument" sense.
He’s similarly thoughtful in his interviews, and provides much-needed nuance to the recent AI discourse here. Was pleasantly surprised to learn he’s skeptical of the singularity and ML hype.