The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

[balder]

I've got the "Rob's Plug" link pointed at this, but I am changing that out every few days and I figured I would put a longer-lasting shout-out here. This excellent free SF novel by Roger Williams is very worth the read. Just take the content warning seriously. Chapter 1 is pretty disturbing.

[Bobby Archer]

Just finished Chapter 1...looks like I know where a good part of my weekend's going...

[edit]And done. Wow, that's pretty freaking cool. I'm gonna have to pass this link along...[/edit]

[Alcazabedabra]

What a story. I must say, artists would be in high demand in a world where your every physical desire is granted automatically.

If death is denied you, and your body no longer requires your attention, the only industry that remains would be entertainment. Like the Death Jockeys.

[balder]

What a story. I must say, artists would be in high demand in a world where your every physical desire is granted automatically.

If death is denied you, and your body no longer requires your attention, the only industry that remains would be entertainment. Like the Death Jockeys.

Yeah I had the same thought. I would still make funny songs, and comics. But the comics would be a full immersion version of Erfworld. I think it would take Jamie to instruct Prime Intellect on how to model the characters and stuff, too. I don't know if it could pull those from my mind or not.

Even in the infinite and immortal cyberspace, I would be a clown at heart.

[jioan]

That was a great story.
SPOILER ALERT


The only thing I don't get is why Prime Intellect killed over 14 trillion people clearly breaking the first law. It should have put them all back to a pre-change world. (Maybe multiple worlds to accomadate the vast population.)

[Bobby Archer]

SPOILER ALERT

The only thing I don't get is why Prime Intellect killed over 14 trillion people clearly breaking the first law. It should have put them all back to a pre-change world. (Maybe multiple worlds to accomadate the vast population.)

It was stated that simply putting back the pre-change world with all the people plugged into it would be impossible. PI didn't have the computing power to handle it. It's not just dropping people on another simulated world, it's recreating every molecule of every world in the universe. The reason PI ended the pre-change world and started up Cyberspace was because it wouldn't have to keep track of every molecule, just the macroscopic factors.

As for being able to off those 14 trillion in the first place, PI had been convinced that it would eventually fail utterly to uphold the 1st law, if it had not already failed (all of the humans would enter into a state that it was now convinced equaled death). In this scenario, saving any humans at all is preferable to every last one dying. It may be that, of all the possible restarts, this was the one with the greatest possibility of success.

[jioan]

SPOILER ALERT

jioan wrote:
The only thing I don't get is why Prime Intellect killed over 14 trillion people clearly breaking the first law. It should have put them all back to a pre-change world. (Maybe multiple worlds to accomadate the vast population.)

Bobby Archer wrote:

It was stated that simply putting back the pre-change world with all the people plugged into it would be impossible. PI didn't have the computing power to handle it. It's not just dropping people on another simulated world, it's recreating every molecule of every world in the universe. The reason PI ended the pre-change world and started up Cyberspace was because it wouldn't have to keep track of every molecule, just the macroscopic factors.

As for being able to off those 14 trillion in the first place, PI had been convinced that it would eventually fail utterly to uphold the 1st law, if it had not already failed (all of the humans would enter into a state that it was now convinced equaled death). In this scenario, saving any humans at all is preferable to every last one dying. It may be that, of all the possible restarts, this was the one with the greatest possibility of success.

Thanks that helps a lot. I assumed that it wasn't covinced it would eventually break the first law and therefore would simply override the second law by not allowing humans to enter the "vegetable" state.

[psilontech]

Loved it up until the last chapter and the second half of the second to last chapter.

Spoiler Alert...


Caroline is a bitch. Simple as that. From what was seen, >90% of the TRILLIONS of people were pretty content. But this little genocidal bitch says that she's bored, and kills trillions. Then, with her little incestuous children that are the last vestiges of mankind, she denies them technology, knowledge, and nearly the ability to read and write, but that only because she believes that it will be lost in a generation or two, simply because "Hurr, Hurrr, eventually they'll build Prime Intelligence V2.0, lulz!"

Main body of the book: Excellent
Ending: Stupid shit.

[Binty]

Well, do we know if the Change was totally reversed? Maybe it was only partial or even just a highly accurate cyberspace? Perhaps what we see is the PI running an experiment. Perhaps Coraline will wake up in cyberspace again?

From a scientific point of view, building a viable human population from two individuals would normally be impossible. Unless the PI removed all deflective genes from their DNA, the population would fail due to increasing genetic ill-health; particularly in a hunter-gatherer society. If the PI had removed all deflective genes its would likely have a significant impact on the aging process; which we didn't see.

In general it's odd that the PI would re-boot the universe with only two humans, unless it was an experiment. Also there appears to be another story being written.

[balder]

Yeah I was not happy with the ending, either. But I've thought about alternatives and the only one I can think of involves Prime Intellect saying no to those who wanted to just live in a constant state of simulated bliss and thereby becoming some kind of active guide for humanity's direction. Since the point of the book seemed to be nihilistic, that once everything is achieved, nothing matters, the "direction" of humanity is problematical. But I think the answer would lie with our creative energies. All things are possible after the Change, but not all things exist. They have to be created, shared, and enjoyed. If it's 1973 and the only video game is Pong, how do you imagine people having fun in something like Portal? Boundaries get pushed, and imagination is applied in the new ground that opens up. I think Prime Intellect blew it.

[Pebot]

Man, I read that in one sitting. Urg. close to 8 in the morning now.

Anyways. Good story. I liked the ending actually.

I found some of the languages a little weird.

But I enjoyed the computer idea. very interesting.

[DevilDan]

I like the ending; I respect it.

The ending I might have picked would be for Prime Intellect to unpack everything and retire itself.