[HN Gopher] The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (1994)
___________________________________________________________________
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (1994)
Author : lawrenceyan
Score : 143 points
Date : 2025-06-03 04:05 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (localroger.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (localroger.com)
| itchyjunk wrote:
| Got recommended this by George Hotz somewhere and I remember
| enjoying this.
| grepexdev wrote:
| Same! When he was last on the Lex Fridman podcast.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Localroger, where did you end up once k5 went to shit? I still
| miss the place.
| okwhateverdude wrote:
| Really good times on k5 all those many moons ago. It is weird
| to consider how ephemeral these internet communities are in the
| end.
| Nursie wrote:
| NO YUO.
|
| I had fun there but overall I'm not sad it's gone. A weirdly
| utopian idea that went very sour.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Read it. Enjoyed it.
|
| But the hard takeoff patronizing AI plot trope is done to death
| that I'd probably hate it if re-read it.
| okwhateverdude wrote:
| This was some out there singularity fiction back in the day with
| some really vivid imagery including being raped by a zombie,
| skinning the protagonist alive and dumping a mound of fire ants
| on them, and some incest. I re-read this occasionally and still
| enjoy reading it if only because it feels truthy for how various
| shades of humanity would deal with an immortality giving, reality
| altering, techno-god. The shock value of various scenes mimics
| the darker corners of the internet and does a good job exploring
| the dichotomy of behavior on and off the internet in the guise of
| dealing with the reality foisted upon the characters.
|
| If you've not read it, and aren't bothered by some extreme
| imagery, I definitely recommend.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I suggest removing the explicit spoilers about what happens in
| the book. Some of the shock value comes from experiencing those
| scenes for the first time.
|
| But yeah. It's a hella graphic and violent story.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Good book, worth a read, but for me the final chapter ruined the
| book to a large extent.
|
| Chapters 1..n-1 are about the rise of a super intelligence and
| dealing with human life post being subsumed into the
| intelligence. It's a bit odd in places, but basically
| interesting, and a reasonable take on what could happen if a
| runaway intelligence is created.
|
| The last chapter however goes completely off the rails. It has
| little to do with the rest of the book, and comes off as if it
| were poorly written fan fiction based on the authors fantasies. I
| recommend skipping it, it's not necessary to the book and I think
| the story would have been stronger finishing without it.
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| One of my most problematic faves.
|
| It's quite well-written, and the way the singularity unfolds is
| compellingly imagined. It's one of the few pieces of fiction I've
| ever seen that really grapples with the idea of paradise and what
| meaning life can have when all obstacles are removed. The streaks
| of graphic violence, though hard to stomach, serve to underscore
| this theme in a provocative way. And Caroline is fantastic.
|
| That last chapter, though. It's so bizarre, so fetishistic, so
| needlessly squicky, that it just about ruins everything that came
| before. IMHO, it would be better if it just ended at the
| cliffhanger in the penultimate chapter.
|
| That said, I'd love to read the long-awaited sequel (The
| Transmigration of Prime Intellect). I've also heard rumblings of
| a movie deal, though one likely consigned to either development
| hell or a rewrite that leaves it an adaptation in name only.
| altairprime wrote:
| Second this. The main story remains relevant to this day. I
| remember clearly where I was when I read it for the first time
| in 2001. I read most of it every ten years or so.
|
| However.
|
| The last chapter is explicit in a way that is unnecessary and
| does not contribute to the story. It may be illegal in some
| jurisdictions, depending on how strict the laws are. There are
| plausible reasons to select the path it takes but the explicit
| detail incorporated is awful, corrosive, and is _solely_
| responsible for why I can't recommend the story to anyone.
|
| I should mirror the story and truncate the final chapter so I
| can share it with people.
| makerofthings wrote:
| I read this book and liked it, but I don't remember anything
| really bad about the last chapter and having a quick scan of
| the linked page above, I don't see anything really out there.
| What am I missing?
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| Fairly graphic descriptions of _very_ underage father-
| daughter sex, so clumsily written and out of character it
| 's like bad NSFW fan fiction.
| makerofthings wrote:
| Ah yes, my memory clearly didn't want to keep that bit.
| It sort of made sense in the context of having a tiny
| number of people left. I read another book called Dark
| Eden that had some similar problems.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I can see why some will not like this book, but I loved it.
| Last chapter felt a bit out of place to me, but didn't ruin the
| book.
|
| Also waiting for the sequel - I still periodically check out
| localroger's site.
| throwanem wrote:
| It's always fascinated me how the incest scene in the final
| chapter elicits this response, but the much more explicit rape
| and sexualized torture earlier in the book comes in for no
| similar obloquy. Specifically, the rape and sexualized torture
| with which the book approximately _starts._ This people are on
| board for, but not the other. Both are about twisted sex stuff,
| but only one actually upsets people who otherwise highly value
| the work. That seems inconsistent enough to require some
| explanation.
|
| The narrative is at pains to be clear neither is less
| consensual than the other, so that can't be the basis for
| objecting to one and not the other. There is also an explicit
| contrast drawn at length in the text between the twisted
| nihilism of a purposeless universe early on, and what occurs at
| the end: Caroline muses aloud that had she awakened next to the
| to-have-been-executed child rapist and murderer whose sexual
| fancies she had entertained within the simulation, her response
| would have been instantly and ferociously - and _necessarily_ -
| lethal, while her daughter 's controversial actions in the
| final chapter take place at Caroline's explicit urging -
| practically at her direction. So if the concern were that the
| moral center of the novel had failed, I would expect to see
| criticism on that basis, rather than a retail effort at
| censorship.
|
| Likewise, though it's been years since I bothered to reread, I
| don't really recall the quality of the writing changing,
| either; it's determinedly mediocre throughout, no less in the
| last chapter than elsewhere.
|
| Well, as I said, I've never understood why people so easily
| excuse the pedophilic rape and murder scenes early in the book,
| while what comes later is such a problem. It still seems
| inconsistent to me, but I have only my own experience of
| childhood rape and sexual torture at my now-dead father's hands
| to draw on, which here no doubt ill equips me to speak.
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| I'm sorry you had to go through that.
|
| On a meta level, the violence makes sense as an exploration
| of the boundaries of that universe -- Prime Intellect makes
| everything so anodyne and safe, that extreme (consensual)
| violent torture is one of the few ways for the jaded to feel
| anything anymore. Even then, the stakes are gone, so it
| becomes a more abstract experience of over-the-top, almost
| comical horror detached from any real danger -- pain for the
| sake of pain. And the pedophilic aspects are all roleplay
| among adults.
|
| The incest stuff is pointlessly gross, though. It's handwaved
| as a way for them to restore the population, but that doesn't
| make biological sense. It's presented as a sudden compulsion
| of Caroline's, who showed no inclination towards it before.
| It makes even less sense for Lawrence. And the girl is so
| young, and the descriptions so explicit. All of those are
| deliberate choices the author makes, and none of them really
| necessary except as some kind of pervy wish-fulfillment.
| (Plus, children cannot consent period, much less when
| initiated into it by their overbearing mother in an otherwise
| empty world).
| throwanem wrote:
| Sorry for the delay in response. I wanted to reread Chapter
| 8.
|
| I still don't think it is more fair to characterize either
| of the story's sexual dynamics as _more_ poorly written for
| the sake of fetishism. If you 're going to charge the
| author and more importantly the audience with being
| problematic in consequence of one but not the other, there
| still remains work to achieve the goal, because as I noted
| in a nearby comment the writing is mediocre at best,
| invariably didactic and workmanlike, frequently an outright
| slog. This is true in all sex scenes also, no more one than
| any other.
|
| > I'm sorry you had to go through that.
|
| Don't try to speak to that. You don't know how. The _point_
| is that you don 't know how and I would like you please to
| stop trying. It makes sense to me why people would become
| uncomfortable when they are titillated by writing that
| deliberately strives to titillate, but you're supposed to
| think about it, not call for a book burning.
|
| I'll say that again. You're supposed to _think_ about it.
| _Not_ call for a book burning. And certainly _not in my
| name!_
|
| I'm pretty sure no one here is anything like my father, who
| never knew shame for anything he did. I'm pretty sure the
| author of this mediocre but nonetheless compelling work of
| high-concept science fiction is nothing like my father,
| also. I don't blame the author disappearing given the
| fundamental misunderstanding he must have known his work
| would meet, or maybe saw it meet; I read it when it still
| earned the name "novel," but didn't take much interest in
| the contemporary analysis, which I found little less
| superficial then than now. In any case its author must have
| known it would cause a moral panic among people afraid of
| being accused of not caring enough for victims of
| pedophilia. He would also remember the McMinnville trial,
| better indeed than I, who was then actually suffering the
| real equivalent of what always develops when these
| ignorantly prurient fantasies get out of hand.
|
| What you do to each other I could care very little less
| about, and with effort. But actual victims also suffer in
| every moral panic, and _we,_ at last, deserve better.
| Someone therefore needs to check this behavior, and I see
| no one else bothering.
|
| So here I am, in any case the genuine article, a "victim"
| by anyone's standard though I will not wear that term other
| than for argument, and as such I hereby confer permission
| to talk about the _work,_ rather than how embarrassing
| everyone finds it to have had a phase of fascination with
| what, honestly, is chickenshit. Honestly. I could tell you
| about the reality but it has made people retch before and I
| know no ill of you. This is your pass, and everyone 's.
| This thread has been blessed. You all can chill.
|
| Ask your damned questions, even, which I would never
| normally encourage. Better pester me than whoever in your
| life I've brought to your mind just now, who you could
| ignorantly hurt. Ask me instead! Whatever you like. I
| promise to answer honestly and completely or not at all. If
| you think that constitutes generosity, try me.
| ido wrote:
| > Don't apologize for what was none of your doing.
|
| This is veering on off topic, but when people say they
| are "sorry" for something that happened to you they're
| not apologizing - it's an expression of empathy, not
| guilt.
| throwanem wrote:
| I am aware such empty expressions of sympathy are often
| understood and frequently explained in the way you
| describe. I have learned to judge people's behavior
| before the account of it that they give. But you are
| correct that is off topic. Let's waste no further
| interest.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Please stop trying to impose your frame of victimhood on
| people who reject it.
| throwanem wrote:
| I appreciate your intention, but please do not start
| trying to defend me. I will not take it as the act of an
| ally. Your own frame of victimhood is no less hazardous.
| throwanem wrote:
| Excuse me; I meant to refer to the McMartin preschool
| trial.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
| altairprime wrote:
| The incest doesn't excuse the torture. My thoughts and
| feelings about the violence, gore, and torture take up around
| a hundred times as many words as my opinion about the final
| chapter's incest scene.
|
| I would be comfortable warning someone about the violence and
| so on when recommending the book, in order that they make
| their own decision. With certain friends, I would be able to
| discuss it in depth. That's not something noteworthy to this
| novel alone; see also Ender's Game and The Magicians and
| Westworld for having particularly violent moments that earn
| some sort of caveat, and deserve discussion of their value to
| the novel as a whole.
|
| I do not in any way 'excuse' the violent scenes, however.
| This is a violent novel. These violent delights have violent
| ends. If that's not in-scope for someone, no amount of making
| excuses will help someone derive value from it. This is not a
| noteworthy point to make about this novel in specific, at
| least generically, unless one is interested in discussing
| societal mores and the tensions of tolerance and desire for
| ultraviolent content versus Western sexual repression.
|
| (I'm not presenting here any specific viewpoint or opinions
| on the matter of the violence in this work, as those views
| are fully decoupled from my objection to the incest.)
|
| Separately, I find the final sex scene to be needlessly
| detailed. Yes, that's exactly what you'd have to do in an
| Adam/Eve scenario. No, I don't want to read a portrayal of
| incest. Yes, it flows logically from the story. No, I don't
| want to read a portrayal of incest. Yes, the incest is only a
| single page compared to one half of the book's ultraviolent
| dedication. No, I don't want to read a portrayal of incest.
|
| Whatever your position regarding the book's use of violence,
| I urge you to take caution in considering it to be of
| _equivalent_ moral priority to the book's use of incest.
| Perhaps for some, they are of equal priority weighting; but
| that is no guarantee, in most societal contexts, that they
| can be evaluated using equivalent methodologies. No amount of
| refactoring and generalization will defuse the "this is
| unacceptable" outcome of the incest as presented, without
| regarding how much or how little violence is presented at all
| -- because the explicit detail provided does not _contribute_
| to the story.
|
| In general, I expect incest scenes of the type written in
| this book's conclusion will continue eliciting such hostility
| for the foreseeable future, remaining wholly uncorrelated
| from societal shifts in acceptance or rejection of violence
| in fiction. That last chapter has been a problem through
| thirty years of cultural shifts. Here's to another thirty
| years of warning people about it.
|
| Notably, if this was erotica rather than hard sci-fi, and the
| incest scene was a component of titillation in a work
| dedicated to that outcome, then I would have just ao3-tagged
| it and skipped reading that bit and given people a simple cw
| and recommended the story. The segment in question is
| presented as matter of fact non-erotic consequence and
| conclusion of the story, and so does not earn from me the
| shrug-whatever-next tolerance and the much simpler warnings
| that I grant to erotic works in general. However, that
| presents the one exception I would make in recommending this
| story: if I'm recommending it to someone with familiarity
| with romance novels, gothic novels, ao3 tagging, or pornhub
| categories, then I would absolutely have a much _easier_ time
| expressing my discontent with the novel:
|
| "The last chapter has some unnecessarily explicit incest for
| half a page or so, which is in keeping with the lurid
| violence and sex tone set by the rest of the book, but I
| think the author's dedication to the purity of their art
| critically weakens the potential impact of their work."
|
| And then, having concluded the incest warning, I would
| proceed to deciding if a violence and gore warning was
| appropriate for my audience. But that's far too abbreviated
| for use at HN, so HN gets the long form -- and HN is not what
| I would deem a 'violence-averse' community, relative to some
| others, making it uncertain whether I consider the violence
| of use to discuss here at all.
|
| I hope this helps offer some clarity into how one might
| evaluate two equally upsetting things by completely different
| processes without sacrificing internal logical consistency.
| throwanem wrote:
| Why wait till now to look for clarity?
|
| Quoting Shakespeare poorly does nothing to make up for
| however many hundreds of blameless keystrokes 'signifying
| nothing,' save your strength of wish to impute your own
| unsettled emotions via the text unto its author.
|
| Two hours ago you implied that simple possession of the
| text may be a major crime:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44167140 Why strive so
| now for the pretense of evenhandedness?
|
| It couldn't be much more obvious how the work interests
| you. The problem is mistaking that for a commentary on
| _it._ Your effort at literary criticism is no more belated
| than radically ungrounded, as I have already detailed in a
| prior comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44167578 No one who
| gives the work an honest reading will find therein what you
| describe.
| altairprime wrote:
| The quote is first attributed to Shakespeare but his
| usage is not the one I'm referencing.
|
| I tried to show that it's _possible_ to engage with the
| violence of the book and the incest of the book as two
| separate concerns, by engaging with one but not the
| other. In response, you're challenging _my_ motivations
| rather than challenging the separation I described as
| possible. That ends my engagement with your thread; be
| well.
| throwanem wrote:
| It is good form to cite or at least indicate, with
| quotation marks, when quoting. If you meant not to
| reference the famous usage, to name the work is best, not
| least to establish relevance and avoid appearing
| pretentious.
|
| You say you find the incest and the torture equally
| upsetting, then you justify one and indict the other. If
| you can't be consistent even in the scope of a single
| comment, or for that matter distinguish fiction from
| reality better than this, wise indeed you seek balm for
| your dismay over the book elsewhere than with me; I have
| only so much patience for patent nonsense these days.
| altairprime wrote:
| > _You say you find the incest and the torture equally
| upsetting_
|
| I presented no information whatsoever regarding my
| personal views on the violence. Perhaps you tried to
| infer my position from the verb "excuse" in the first
| sentence.
| throwanem wrote:
| I inferred your position from your constant use of the
| first-person singular to describe it, across what must
| now be at least a dozen paragraphs. Also by the fact you
| have found this position worth strenuous and irate effort
| to defend. If you had meant something else or had some
| relevant interest to disclose, I assume you would have
| said so.
|
| What you did say was
|
| > I hope this helps offer some clarity into how one might
| evaluate two equally upsetting things
|
| which I took, by the way you called the two things -
| namely, the incest and the torture, as introduced at the
| top of your comment - "equally upsetting," to mean you
| consider them equally upsetting. If you wish now to claim
| you intended something by the phrase "equally upsetting"
| other than its literal meaning, you need to clarify.
|
| You have by now after all impugned, whether openly or by
| implication, both the motivations and the intellectual
| competence of the author, the audience, and I myself.
| None of this is convincing. It is time to try something
| else. Ideally, that might involve discussing the text,
| but I agree it isn't for everyone.
| throwanem wrote:
| Oh, good grief, I wish I'd caught this while I still
| could delete my prior comment. You opened with
|
| > The incest doesn't excuse the torture.
|
| But that is not what I said. I said, in the comment of
| mine to which you first replied, that _people_ excuse the
| torture, but not the incest, just as you have done.
|
| I still can't figure out what you meant by "equally
| upsetting," but the basic issue is that we're talking
| past each other because you failed to apprehend my thesis
| and I was too busy to notice and call you on it right
| away. I hope this clears things up!
| clockworkhavoc wrote:
| Same. This is why I find it repulsive they named the company
| after such a clearly depraved work of art. If any of their
| customers knew the origin story I'm sure they would be
| appalled.
| dTal wrote:
| You really just handwaved the "consent" issue?
|
| In one instance a consenting adult was indulging a
| fetishistic roleplay in a simulation. In the other a _literal
| child_ - unable by our standards to meaningfully consent -
| was coerced into ritual sex with her father, in the _real
| world_. It 's disturbing that you consider different
| reactions to these as "inconsistent".
|
| But also I think there is a _thematic_ squick that runs a lot
| deeper. The torture stuff at the beginning is portrayed as a
| sickness, a reaction to meaninglessness and inauthenticity.
| Caroline 's relationship to it is a kind of masochistic
| expression of unhappiness with the ephemerality of
| experiences in the simulation. Permanence is forbidden, and
| so she is drawn to the permanence of death and trauma. It is
| Bad.
|
| The final chapter is - as you say - explicitly pitched as a
| counterpoint to all that. Experiences in the real world are
| described with the warm glow of meaningful authenticity, as
| though portraying the ideal state of humanity. Permanence is
| held up as the source of all meaning. It is Good. The incest
| scene is framed as _normal_ , and _natural_ , and _wholesome_
| , maybe even _innocent_ , and especially _permanent and
| significant_ - a antipode to the beginning scenes. There 's
| even a line about how the father unexpectedly "finds his body
| responding", as though activating some biological heritage.
|
| In short - the squick comes not just from the explicit
| depiction, but from the subtextual framing that incest is
| right and proper.
| throwanem wrote:
| > In the other a literal child - unable by our standards to
| meaningfully consent - was coerced into ritual sex with her
| father, in the real world.
|
| Really? I recall that event occurring in a science fiction
| novel, and if you are going to fuss that I suggest you're
| unclear on the distinction, then I will require you to
| explain why I seem to be the only one here _not_ genuinely,
| hot-bloodedly angry over things that happen in a _story_
| that _is not real._
|
| That's why you don't, but I do, remember Caroline talking
| to Lawrence about how she would have killed Fred or Palmer
| without a _first_ thought, much less a second. Caroline is
| the only post-singularity _murderer!_ Sometimes I wonder if
| anyone here has read the book, or indeed is meaningfully
| literate, ie capable of scoring >1 on the high school AP
| English exam: when an author shows us at length that a
| protagonist has vengefully seduced her former abuser in
| order to carry out murder in cold blood, you are not meant
| to take this person as morally immaculate! Reading is
| _participatory,_ damn it. You do it with your brain
| switched on, and ideally also without the extremely evident
| assumption that everything is and should be propaganda
| designed to change your opinion on something. But that you
| 're angry is also why you don't and I do recall that, if
| anyone's consent is portrayed in the scene as approximately
| coerced, it is not Nugget but Lawrence.
|
| For that and a handful of less relevant reasons, and in a
| context of such ruthless necessity and matriarchal
| leadership as by this point the narrative has worked very
| hard and at considerable length to establish, a reading so
| false to fact as yours must indict at least one of
| motivation and reading comprehension. It simply is not
| possible to produce so erroneous a reading both competently
| and innocently. It is foolish at best to equate
| "counterpoint" with "moral inverse!" Like if I say I prefer
| something the same way I'd rather have herpes than cancer,
| no one would take me to mean I think either of those was
| good. Or no one so far, at any rate. The way this thread
| has gone, it might just be a matter of time before even the
| joke asks too much of its audience.
|
| It's pretty cool of you to tell a chronic childhood rape
| victim that he's "handwaved the 'consent' issue," though. I
| mean, obviously that's an issue anyone would sensibly
| assume they've put _more_ thought into than me. You
| certainly had much better reason and a lot more experience
| to draw on, of course! But this is why the "victim" label
| is bullshit. It exists to give people like you an easier
| time talking over people like me. I don't play on easy mode
| that way. You will need to try harder. I wonder if you're
| really up to it.
|
| If you want to advocate censorship, fine. Do so honestly
| and I might even agree with you; my opinions on certain
| diffusion models and adapters, for example, which I have
| discussed here in recent months, are a good case in point.
| When I catch you trying to advocate censorship by deceit
| and in my name, I'm not going to stop calling you on it.
| You can keep going down this road if you want, but fair
| warning if you do: over such an incoherent and
| insubstantial reading as yours, I'll all but have to
| discuss your motivations, for want of anything else capable
| of supporting any conversation at all. Neither of us wants
| that, but you will enjoy it less.
| milleramp wrote:
| There is also the short story A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace:
| https://localroger.com/k5host/casodycs.html For me it clarified
| ideas from the book.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| >It's one of the few pieces of fiction I've ever seen that
| really grapples with the idea of paradise and what meaning life
| can have when all obstacles are removed.
|
| I'm not so sure about this. It's hard not to see these kinds of
| "actually, paradise actually wouldn't be so great" takes as the
| ultimate sour grapes. See also: "actually, immortality would be
| bad".
|
| I suspect we can't even really discuss what "paradise" would be
| like or how people would react to it because it would be so
| different from all of previous existence. The best we can do,
| as in this story, is "the current world minus the bad stuff"
| and go from there.
| monkeyfun wrote:
| I'd argue it doesn't at all say paradise wouldn't be great --
| plenty of people are content with their lives, and there's
| plenty of options to functionally die or reduce your level of
| consciousness below one that will really be able to care
| about the future or be bored.
|
| Rather, it's a nihilistic dream from that place, free and
| limitless cyberspace; a heaven.
|
| A timeless place at the end of history.
|
| Perhaps read the companion piece (A Casino Odyssey in
| Cyberspace), which illustrates how one doesn't need to spend
| centuries to become aware of the Meaninglessness of life, and
| yet simultaneously how Meaning can be created for individuals
| even at the end of history.
|
| I think a more interesting avenue to explore is the author's
| particular leaning toward sadism, as I find it a little
| unclear if his view is one in which sadism and domination is
| merely more interesting to explore for the stories, or if his
| particular view is that the most undiluted pleasure left in
| cyberspace is sadism or domination.
|
| Something which, for as terrible as it may sound, I think we
| can actually find possible signs of -- moreso Domination (or
| far less ominously: Mastery) than Sadism.
|
| I'll cut my comment short-er about here, but those intrigued
| by the idea can also explore the fact that in MoPI a
| character like Caroline isn't actually sadistic like many of
| those she meets, but absolutely spent centuries mastering
| skills and keeping busy with simple competition against
| others.
|
| Likewise she ties into my earlier points about Nihilism and
| Meaning, where it's pretty clear the ending is likely just
| the moment Prime Intellect's definitions of death blurred
| just as it also realized it could never make people like
| Caroline satisfied as long as she thinks she's in cyberspace.
| Notice she's engaged in many of the exact same activities she
| spent her time on in cyberspace and would have gladly been
| happy continuing on that way for countless centuries more
| while guiding her tribe lamenting her old age at the
| conclusion.
|
| (Aside: wow I'm so happy to see MoPI mentioned somewhere! It
| always feels so little-known.)
| russnes wrote:
| one of my favorite books, great combination of philosophy and
| adventure. I especially like what reminds me of the vibe I would
| get from other sci fi and video games from America in the 90s. I
| also enjoyed his short story in the same universe "A Casino
| Odyssey in Cyberspace"
| throwanem wrote:
| Ready Player One is also one of the ones you're meant to
| outgrow. I wouldn't wait to start, I think.
| cognomano wrote:
| I can't read it on iPhone: the Reader doesn't work and neither
| the increasing the font size. Sorry!
| throwanem wrote:
| Safari reader mode works fine for me on an iPhone 13 mini, but
| there are also innumerable epub and PDF versions; this work has
| been popular among AI fantasist nerds for about twenty-five
| years.
|
| For quite closely similar reasons, you are not missing all that
| much. It's seeing a fad among a generation previously ignorant,
| probably because of boosterism on the part of people my age who
| never quite figured out this is one of the ones you outgrow.
| altairprime wrote:
| It used to be on Kindle store, if that helps any. Might still
| be!
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| I must confess I prefer Passages in the Void
| throwanem wrote:
| I hadn't bothered to see if he developed his thinking further!
| Is there a well-formatted copy anywhere? All I can find is a
| PDF prepared by an incompetent.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| Not portably, but on https://localroger.com/ under "Passages
| in the Void" it is available in plaintext, back in the day I
| read it on kuro5hin.
| nowittyusername wrote:
| I loved this thing when I read it. Still do. Very interesting
| take on the "pain Olympics" especially. Overall just the setting
| tone and characters seemed creative at the time, serial killer
| friend and all that jazz...
| lynx97 wrote:
| Well, while the concept of "what happens if we get rid of
| samsara" is deeply interesting, the dom/sub nature of this story
| makes it kind of cheap. Its a sadists dream. A bored female
| submitting herself for the sake of excitment. Its kind of telling
| this got upvoted so much.
| throwanem wrote:
| Something here is telling, but not about the story.
| shdh wrote:
| One of the best. Free online.
|
| Also recommend Accelerando by Charles Stross.
| throwanem wrote:
| Both are worth reading. Neither exceeds the mediocre.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I read the book and enjoyed most of it. I don't like the last
| part, where the author dived into the mindset of "everything will
| be good without tech". I mean, tech is neutral, so it depends on
| how humans use it. But getting rid of all tech is an extreme.
|
| I'd like to PAUSE research on AI before humans reach a better
| society, because it has the potential to impact all workers, but
| that's pretty much it.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > I'd like to PAUSE research on AI before humans reach a better
| society
|
| In light of recent events I think it's unsafe to assume that
| society will be better in the future.
| benji-york wrote:
| Having read this book in the late '90s, I've though of it at
| least monthly since then. The themes are truly epic, but the
| human behaviors described (sometimes in great detail) are
| horrendous.
| bytter wrote:
| While many discussions here focus on the novel's explicit content
| and narrative choices, I believe it's equally important to
| examine its philosophical portrayal of artificial intelligence
| and post-humanism. In my view (I wrote about it back in 2014, in
| my ["Review of Metamorphosis of Prime
| Intellect"](https://hugosereno.com/blog/2014/12/08/review-of-
| metamorphos...)), the novel presents a deterministic and somewhat
| pessimistic vision of AI, where the superintelligent entity,
| Prime Intellect, rigidly adheres to pre-programmed laws, leading
| to unintended and often disturbing consequences for humanity.
| This depiction raises questions about the limitations of encoding
| human ethics into AI and the potential pitfalls of such an
| approach. And although it resonates with recent AI culture, it
| also fails to capture how we've learned that it's almost next to
| impossible to align an AI to any kind of ethics; be it good or
| bad, according to human definitions (which, after reading Simon
| Blackburn's work, it seems to me like a random, ad-hoc mess of
| brittle rules). Fundamentally, this novel was written by a
| fascinating author that is human. And maybe his reflection on the
| human nature is mirrored in the very narrative of his work.
|
| I'm not alone in this perspective. Among others:
|
| 1. Michael Uhall, in his essay "Metaphysical Boredom in the
| Empire of Desire," argues that MoPI is less about technological
| speculation and more about existential questions central to post-
| history. He suggests that the narrative explores whether humanity
| can find meaning without the conflicts and constraints that
| define finite existence. Uhall posits that the novel portrays a
| world where, in the absence of pain and death, humans become
| obsessed with these very concepts, highlighting a failure to
| imagine intelligence beyond human limitations.
|
| 2. Susan Schneider, while not commenting on MoPI directly, has
| expressed concerns about simplistic portrayals of artificial
| intelligence in fiction. In her work, she emphasizes the
| importance of understanding the philosophical implications of AI,
| cautioning against narratives that depict AI as either wholly
| benevolent or malevolent without nuance. This perspective
| resonates with my own critique of MoPI's depiction of AI as
| fundamentally flawed and self-centered.
|
| 3. Hubert Dreyfus, known for his critique of artificial
| intelligence, argued that human intelligence and expertise rely
| on unconscious processes that cannot be replicated by formal
| rules or algorithms. While Dreyfus did not specifically address
| MoPI, his skepticism about the capabilities of AI aligns with
| critiques of the novel's portrayal of a superintelligent AI that
| fails to transcend human flaws.
|
| 4. Daniel Dennett has warned against anthropomorphizing AI
| systems, suggesting that attributing human-like understanding to
| machines can be misleading. Although Dennett's work does not
| directly critique MoPI, his cautionary stance on interpreting AI
| behavior supports concerns about oversimplified representations
| of AI in literature.
|
| I invite people to think about this novel through the lens of
| recent "alignment" research. The paperclip metaphor is alluring
| because of its reduction ad absurdum. But, simultaneously, it's
| devoid of any kind of nuance (the world seems to care less about
| nuance).
|
| We need this nuance back.
| mullingitover wrote:
| That story has two of the most wickedly evil protagonists ever.
|
| They selfishly wiped out all of humanity (all bajillion trillion
| of them) because _they_ didn 't like how things were going.
|
| I say evil, with my whole chest, because their behavior is a big
| hallmark of evil: "I'm absolutely right about this, and I'm going
| to make a decision that kills vast numbers of human beings
| because I know I'm right and your deaths are a sacrifice I'm
| willing to make."
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| But in an arguably righteous way, which makes it even more
| challenging. (Specifically, the idea that humanity was
| essentially meaningless and dead already due to the lack of any
| real challenges or goals, as well as the desire to free the
| hundreds of alien worlds that had been frozen by PI.)
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Specifically, the idea that humanity was essentially
| meaningless and dead already due to the lack of any real
| challenges or goals
|
| This is what I'm talking about though, this was wholly
| decided by the protagonists. They were _certain_ that the
| lives of everyone else were _worthless_. The people who they
| were exterminating didn 't get any input in the decision.
|
| This is a common feature among humanity's most absolutely
| vile monsters.
| tagami wrote:
| How are ants at your picnic different
| ben_w wrote:
| Wrong metaphor given the AI in the story*, try "rats in
| Universe 25":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
|
| * I've only read the Wikipedia summary, it's not a book
| I'd enjoy
| noworriesnate wrote:
| The point of the book seems to be to argue about
| philosophical questions like what is or isn't human:
|
| > But it remains a feedback control mechanism. It has
| desires, it asks Prime Intellect to satisfy those desires,
| and it has more desires. From Prime Intellect's
| perspective, that is what a human being is, an information
| structure that gives it stuff to do.
|
| > Caroline interrupted him. "That's a tautology. The Laws
| say 'do this for human beings,' then you define 'human
| being' as 'guys you do stuff for under the Laws.'"
|
| Do you feel bad for zombies in zombie movies? What about
| feeling sorry for ghosts in ghost stories? My point isn't
| that the answer is clear-cut, it's just that the underlying
| question isn't whether or not Catherine and Lawrence are
| horrible people, the question is whether humanity was even
| human anymore. Or even, whether humanity was even _life_
| anymore.
|
| So in the spirit of that discussion--why do you think the
| things that Prime Intellect served were human?
| mullingitover wrote:
| > So in the spirit of that discussion--why do you think
| the things that Prime Intellect served were human?
|
| I can't speak for the fictional group of humanity as a
| whole in that story, but I'd wager _they_ felt they were
| human, and there was an unambiguous lineage from the
| original humans.
|
| I understand that it's just a story that makes you think
| about the grey area, it's just that for me it ends at "we
| used a sploit to genocide the human race because we were
| super bored reactionaries."
|
| The redeeming theory for me is that their ending is just
| for them, Prime Intellect just sort of walls them off in
| their own shard and the rest of humanity goes on without
| noticing.
| ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote:
| >"I'm absolutely right about this, and I'm going to make a
| decision that kills vast numbers of human beings because I know
| I'm right and your deaths are a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
|
| Sounds like human nature. That's what politicians do even to
| this day and anyone objecting to it is called "a traitor"
| and/or "not a real man" (whatever that means). Humanity loves
| its death rituals. Go on, downvote me to oblivion.
| postalrat wrote:
| Didn't the prime intellect already wipe out 100% of humanity
| during the change or whatever it was called? Unless that was
| what you were talking about. The second wipe was to bring a at
| least a few people back.
| neuralkoi wrote:
| This was verbatim Hitler in his last days in his bunker,
| drafting 16 and 60 year olds, as over a million soldiers of the
| Red Army surround Berlin, still believing his own delusions.
|
| "... on the 5th of March Hitler calls up the class of 1929
| which is 15 and 16 year olds" [0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQjAduZqGjM&t=1053s
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| I'll be completely honest and say that I only ever remember
| reading the first chapter, and never actually finished this
| story. But the title sounds really cool.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I tried to read this and immediately eye rolled at the gratuitous
| sexual violence that starts on like page 5.
|
| Trashy book, imo. And reads like it was written by a middle
| schooler. Maybe if you slog through the bad prose and edgy sex
| scenes theres something good, but wasnt worth it to me.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Everyone freaks out about the incest at the end but I hate this
| story because the main character is given eternal life in
| paradise and spends the whole story trying to destroy it.
| fuzo wrote:
| Why didn't Caroline talk to her family again? And instead hooked
| up with serial killers and death enthusiasts. I've read this a
| couple of times over the years and never got that.
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