Re: Failure of AI a prediction of Neal Stephenson's "The

Hara Ra (harara@shamanics.com)
Fri, 02 Oct 1998 22:57:17 -0700

At 07:12 AM 10/2/98 -0700, mark@unicorn.com wrote:
>it appears to be a central theme of the novel.
>
>I still haven't read this book yet, but it seems to me that it may well
>be a prerequisite for a story of human life in a nanotech society, rather
>than a prediction. Widespread SI changes so many things that a society
>like this may be impossible; he could be laboring the point a little to
>justify not including SIs because he wants to write about a more normal
>human society, not because he doesn't think they could exist.
>
Limitation is a necessity in art, otherwise you get random junk. Think of the limits imposed by Vinge in "A Fire Upon the Deep". Carefully chosen to make the ideas work, utter nonsense in terms of contemporary physics.

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