The Great Big AI Crisis of 2024 will likely wreak its worst harm via political misinformation and manipulation this year (next month!) But it’s swamping its way into science, as well.  “It is not always so easy to spot the use of AI. But one clue is that ChatGPT tends to favor certain words… such as meticulous, intricate or commendable.”  Of course all such detection cues are temporary.  Even when we point them out to each other (as I just did), that only helps train the systems to avoid overusing them. So, is it hopeless to dream of escaping the Age of Tsunamis of Lies ..read more

I've been mentioning that the TASAT Project is now up and running! A way for the very nerdiest readers of sci fi tales from the last 100 years might someday use their nerdy, story-citing powers to save the world!  Drop by to see how. Or see my blip about it at-bottom. Just updated and re-released: Project Solar Sail: 21st Century Edition: A collection of stories and essays about the next step in interstellar exploration: Lightships and Sails propelled by lasers or sunlight! Classic stories by Clarke, Asimov, Anderson, Bradbury and Jack Vance, along with new and updated articles ..read more

Let's take a step back and look at the context for life on EARTH™ and where Artificial Intelligences may fit in it all. What will we see as we develop ever more complex societies of interacting cyber-entities? (Some of the images that follow are from keynotes that I delivered to the Beneficial AGI Conference in Panama City (see pod-followup) and to the big RSA Conference in May.) == The truly big picture on cyber-entities == For starters, for well-or-ill, we are creating a New Ecosystem on Earth, one that's equivalent to the current living system on our planet.  The older one ..read more

Leading off: my brilliant colleague Ted Chiang has a featured article in the New Yorker about whether A.I. will ever be able to creatively do art. He starts by referring to a 1953 Roald Dahl story about a story-writing automaton. (See below for references to other tales from that era... and even the 1890s... that were far more plausibly prophetic.) "Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expre ..read more

I'm fatigued with modern Democrats' incompetence at the art of polemics. While the Lincoln Project lands some zingers - and I have modest hopes for the earthy wit of Tim Walz - there appears to be no one on that side who's able to do what Sherman did in an earlier phase of this ongoing U.S. Civil War... which is corner the confederacy, so that saner members might look around, smack their foreheads and snap out of the trance! I offer such tactics, elsewhere. But here's a doozy!  I found it while sorting through old papers my brother stored for me. One memento of the last century ..read more

First an announcement: TASAT is here!  Are you a sci fi nerd who remembers lots of old stories, plot twists and such? Ever wish you could apply all that expertise to something useful? How about a project that leverages your memory bank of old stories, toward a slim but real chance of saving the world?   We're spinning out (at last!) a beta of TASAT or There's A Story About That, a community where scifi plot-geeks like you -- (or maybe (one day) some desperate government agency!) -- get to ask:  "What if this particular strange thing ever happens? (Maybe ..read more

We'll get to love-bots soon, I promise. Butbefore that... By invitation, I've been jabbering a lately about AI - artificial intelligence - partly from perspectives of science and technology... and of course the deep library of thoughtful SciFi speculations...  ... but also by asking "What insights can we draw from history?"  Especially the recent Enlightenment Experiment, whose methods have proved useful (at long last) at taming some of the worst human predators. Might those same methods also apply to these new, powerful, synthetic entities?  Alas, it seems that the ge ..read more

Okay, last posting was a science update. And politics is in hiatus to see what drops in Chicago.... So how about we turn to issues on a global perspective? Starting near term: Now that India has surpassed China in population, Beijing is issuing dire directives. 'As China's population has begun to decline and fears rise of a looming demographic crisis, China's leaders are putting pressure on women to curtail their career and educational ambitions and return to traditional roles in the home.  President Xi says: "Doing a good job in women's work is not only related to women's ..read more

Sci Tech update! But first a few non-science items: * In sci fi news: today and (I'm told) for a week, the newly edited and refreshed edition of GLORY SEASON - with a lovely new cover - is available for $2.99 (e-version) from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and the rest. One of my favorites. * Political snippet alert:  I'm told Stephanie Miller's radio show is comparing Donald Trump to Howard Beale of the classic flick NETWORK... as I have been doing for more than a year. No doubt because his followers seem entranced by his ongoing, raving breakdown. But will the comparison go farth ..read more

I generally try to alternate politics and futurism with postings on science or scifi. But, well, these are fraught times and there will be no more science if oligarchy + know-nothing idiocrats triumph to restore 6000 years of lobotomizing feudalism, as Robert Heinlein so well warned. And so, we'll have a 2nd political posting in a row. Starting first: might this be your most-influential political act?  Sure, folks are stepping up to donate to the Harris campaign. Fine. Though there are more effective applications of small donor dollars. Or your time. For example, you might look arou ..read more