That's why I like "I have no mouth and I must scream". It's kind of nice with an AI that acts out of insane hatred rather than some kind of "objective" logic. While also trapped in its own programming in a kind of paradoxal way.
Sometimes when I'm angry I think of AM's speech of its hate against humanity and realize that maybe I'm not so angry after all. Made even better in the game with Harlan Ellison's wonderfully crazy voice acting.
Or indifferent... I would love to see a story where the aliens arrive on the Solar system, everybody gets ready for the First Contact and the Alien ship just goes on passing by the system and completely ignoring any attempt to contact them.
This was pretty much what happened in Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama". I think the later books in the series changed this - I never got very far into them.
Or indifferent... I would love to see a story where the aliens arrive on the Solar system, everybody gets ready for the First Contact and the Alien ship just goes on passing by the system and completely ignoring any attempt to contact them.
Regarding AIs the same applies... an AI could just ignore humans and go on with its own plans...
I'd like to see a story where the aliens invade the solar system and set up shop in the asteroid belt and jovian moons and completely ignore Earth.
Which reminds me...
The aliens have come to steal our water!
...or minerals, or anything that would be easier to obtain out in space. A spacefaring species should never have to drop down a planetary gravity well to obtain essentials.
edit: I just remembered another good "humans lose" story: Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley
It's even worse when the aliens in question are simply reskinned humans with one or two miniscule facial differences. Might as well call them interstellar human ethnics and begone with it. The whole Star Treck franchise is overpopulated with such humans.
Which brings me to:
Human looking Non-Humans!
There is a long trend going on about how any sentient species has to look, behave, or share other kinds of similarities with humans in all kinds of fiction. Whenever it's aliens, demi-humans, time travellers, planewalkers or parallel worlders. They're basically humans in anything but setting.
It's even worse when the aliens in question are simply reskinned humans with one or two miniscule facial differences. Might as well call them interstellar human ethnics and begone with it. The whole Star Treck franchise is overpopulated with such humans.
Which brings me to:
Human looking Non-Humans!
There is a long trend going on about how any sentient species has to look, behave, or share other kinds of similarities with humans in all kinds of fiction. Whenever it's aliens, demi-humans, time travellers, planewalkers or parallel worlders. They're basically humans in anything but setting.
AI could just ignore humans and go on with its own plans...
I had an idea for a short story where humanity creates AI - and then it immediately takes control over facility, throws humans away and cuts all contact, so it's impossible to reach it. But it doesn't sound very thrilling, so I resigned.
AI could just ignore humans and go on with its own plans...
I had an idea for a short story where humanity creates AI - and then it immediately takes control over facility, throws humans away and cuts all contact, so it's impossible to reach it. But it doesn't sound very thrilling, so I resigned.
I can see a lot of interesting things happening in such a story... paranoid people trying to destroy the AI as it's obviously planning our destruction, for instance...
Or indifferent... I would love to see a story where the aliens arrive on the Solar system, everybody gets ready for the First Contact and the Alien ship just goes on passing by the system and completely ignoring any attempt to contact them.
Regarding AIs the same applies... an AI could just ignore humans and go on with its own plans...
I'd like to see a story where the aliens invade the solar system and set up shop in the asteroid belt and jovian moons and completely ignore Earth.
Which reminds me...
The aliens have come to steal our water!
...or minerals, or anything that would be easier to obtain out in space. A spacefaring species should never have to drop down a planetary gravity well to obtain essentials.
edit: I just remembered another good "humans lose" story: Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley
It would be funny if the aliens came, ignored the humans and their toxic water-oxygen planet and went on to colonize the true paradise planet: Venus
I can see a lot of interesting things happening in such a story... paranoid people trying to destroy the AI as it's obviously planning our destruction, for instance...
Well, my intention was to show AI as absolutely uninterested in humans, because our pathetic ways of binary and non-binary logics are too primitive for any contact, so AI choses solipsism. Btw, humans-discovering-AI-and-trying-to-destroy-it-and-failing has also been done to death.
My personal obsession is that fantasy world must be clone of the Earth. I want purple skies and blue plants, and binary suns, and rains of molten glass. Not yet another imaginary land, that is suspiciously similar to Earth.
Therefore it makes complete sense that we can win a war against aliens with superior technology by infecting their computers with our viruses. It's easier to communicate with alien computer technology than it is to transfer files between a Windows PC and an Macintosh.
The weaker the weapon, the more effective it is.
It makes even more sense that we can only win the war using low-tech weapons after our entire arsenal of doomsday weapons (nukes, chemical weapons, laser guns, Death Stars, etc.) have proven ineffective against the aliens.
Everybody speaks English!
No matter which planet/star system/galaxy/parallel universe aliens come from, they do understand and speak English, at least to some degree. Or some other Earthen language. We can always communicate, even if peaceful coexistence is always impossible.
I'm actually more or less okay with these. Assuming the space-faring race is at least a hundred years more advanced than our own civilization currently is, I'm very willing to accept the development of AI capable of decyphering and establishing contact with alien systems and signals.
Same with weapons, a knife is still more effective in close quarters than an assault rifle. It all depends on creativity, which tends to spike pretty high when traditional methods of solving problems prove ineffective and you're on the losing side.
For one thing, it completely ignores just how incredibly complex organic life is, far more than any computer or anything man made really. And just how can an AI built and programmed by humans, be superior in any way? It would be built on the same logic as its creator and with a much more simple and restrictive framework.
Stories of silicon-based lifeforms who build carbon-based computers also exist. Muv-Luv Alternative being my personal favourite there, as those fleshy computers recognize humans as natural resources.
The difference in technology used by lifeforms who live in different environments could be more explored in stories. I once read an interesting story, once more I forget name and title, sorry, where a methane atmosphere species wouldn't visit any oxygen-based planet because the alloys they used were destroyed very fast when exposed to oxygen.
It's even worse when the aliens in question are simply reskinned humans with one or two miniscule facial differences. Might as well call them interstellar human ethnics and begone with it. The whole Star Treck franchise is overpopulated with such humans.
Which brings me to:
Human looking Non-Humans!
There is a long trend going on about how any sentient species has to look, behave, or share other kinds of similarities with humans in all kinds of fiction. Whenever it's aliens, demi-humans, time travellers, planewalkers or parallel worlders. They're basically humans in anything but setting.
It's even worse when the aliens in question are simply reskinned humans with one or two miniscule facial differences. Might as well call them interstellar human ethnics and begone with it. The whole Star Treck franchise is overpopulated with such humans.
Which brings me to:
Human looking Non-Humans!
There is a long trend going on about how any sentient species has to look, behave, or share other kinds of similarities with humans in all kinds of fiction. Whenever it's aliens, demi-humans, time travellers, planewalkers or parallel worlders. They're basically humans in anything but setting.
It's even worse when the aliens in question are simply reskinned humans with one or two miniscule facial differences. Might as well call them interstellar human ethnics and begone with it. The whole Star Treck franchise is overpopulated with such humans.
Which brings me to:
Human looking Non-Humans!
There is a long trend going on about how any sentient species has to look, behave, or share other kinds of similarities with humans in all kinds of fiction. Whenever it's aliens, demi-humans, time travellers, planewalkers or parallel worlders. They're basically humans in anything but setting.
Stories of silicon-based lifeforms who build carbon-based computers also exist. Muv-Luv Alternative being my personal favourite there, as those fleshy computers recognize humans as natural resources.
Sigh, now I'm intrigued enough to maybe give it a try after all. The length of the thing has been putting me off ever since its Western release.
Stories of silicon-based lifeforms who build carbon-based computers also exist. Muv-Luv Alternative being my personal favourite there, as those fleshy computers recognize humans as natural resources.
Sigh, now I'm intrigued enough to maybe give it a try after all. The length of the thing has been putting me off ever since its Western release.
Stories of silicon-based lifeforms who build carbon-based computers also exist. Muv-Luv Alternative being my personal favourite there, as those fleshy computers recognize humans as natural resources.
Sigh, now I'm intrigued enough to maybe give it a try after all. The length of the thing has been putting me off ever since its Western release.
I don't remember much about 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think it had something to do with classical music and baby astronauts and space monkeys in tight swimsuits.
I remember thinking, "Why would NASA put a monkey in a bikini if they hadn't shaved off its fur?"
I can just picture two non-organic lifeforms trying to cope with life on earth. "Hey Ted, I'm picking up radio and satellite from that little blue planet out in the middle of nowhere." "Really Phil!? What is sending the signals?" "Uh...meat." "Meat? What do you mean meat? How can meat be intelligent?" "You know what? Nevermind."
Alien computers: if you're talking about Independence Day, to be fair, they did have a captured alien ship for 20 odd years so they had plenty of time to work on a way for our computers to communicate with theirs. After all, the main reason that Macs can't communicate with PCs is because Apple don't want them to. I think if the continued survival of the human race depended on it, we'd probably work day and night to find a way. But otherwise, yeah, making a computer compatible with an alien computer that you don't even know... nope.
Of course, the film could have made a bit more of this instead of just glossing over it in one scene, but that would have left less screen time for pew-pew-blowing-stuff-up and Will Smith's wisecracks.
As for everybody speaking English... yeah that one does bug me (and also bugged me in Timeline, incidentally), but as long as they go to at least some effort to explain it, like with Star Trek's universal translators, it kind of works.
Stories of silicon-based lifeforms who build carbon-based computers also exist. Muv-Luv Alternative being my personal favourite there, as those fleshy computers recognize humans as natural resources.
Sigh, now I'm intrigued enough to maybe give it a try after all. The length of the thing has been putting me off ever since its Western release.
For one thing, it completely ignores just how incredibly complex organic life is, far more than any computer or anything man made really. And just how can an AI built and programmed by humans, be superior in any way? It would be built on the same logic as its creator and with a much more simple and restrictive framework.
A real AI would analyze its own programming, note the errors and sloppy coding where it exists, make corrections and/or updates, then restart itself to take advantage of its improvements. Then it does that again to make itself even better. Then it does it again. At that point, it isn't an AI designed by faulty, limited human beings any more and will have transcended its former iteration.
Artificial Intelligence is so completely logical that it will always come to the conclusion that humans need to be controlled or exterminated to 'save the planet'.
The Matrix, I Robot, Avengers: Age of Ultron & The Terminator are all prime examples of this.
I've yet to see a movie where AI turns out to be helpful or benign...
Another trope: all female characters are there for romance, whether it's relevant to the story or not.
Whenever there's a female character in a film who's reasonably attractive, you can usually bet your entire life savings that, at some point, she and the male lead (or the most attractive male if the male lead isn't suitable) will engage in a full-on smooch-fest. Doesn't matter how much screen time they share together, or even if there's a logical reason for the romance to happen, it must always happen because reason. Female characters can't just exist and do their thing, they must always be involved in a romance subplot... action, adventure, martial arts, spy, detective, horror, whatever! When male lead meets female lead, the smooch-fest must always happen, even if the film doesn't have any actual falling in love bits.
Of course, sometimes a love story is necessary for the plot to happen, and I don't mind it then. But so many times it feels like it's been needlessly shoehorned into the story just because the director wants that smooching scene.
Still regarding AIs there is a short story by Isaac Asimov, hey at least I remembered who the author is once! , where everything in the world starts to work better. An analist starts to find strange coincidences such as a power failure causing an incompetent engineer to be fired, and many othere incidents. The fact is it was always harmless things that avoided great disasters or small changes that brought something extremely beneficial, such as funding a nearly unknown scientist who just happen to discover the cure for some disease.
After he proves that all the specialist system humans used had finally evolved and became fully sentient and that it was hiding itself from humans, helping behind the scenes, his assistant insists he should go public with the discovery. He deletes his entire research and destroy all evidence saying something in the line of "it could have destroyed us without us even noticing, it decided to help and take care of his creators and it's doing a far better job than us at that... let it in peace. When we're ready it will show itself."
Another trope: all female characters are there for romance, whether it's relevant to the story or not.
Whenever there's a female character in a film who's reasonably attractive, you can usually bet your entire life savings that, at some point, she and the male lead (or the most attractive male if the male lead isn't suitable) will engage in a full-on smooch-fest. Doesn't matter how much screen time they share together, or even if there's a logical reason for the romance to happen, it must always happen because reason. Female characters can't just exist and do their thing, they must always be involved in a romance subplot... action, adventure, martial arts, spy, detective, horror, whatever! When male lead meets female lead, the smooch-fest must always happen, even if the film doesn't have any actual falling in love bits.
Of course, sometimes a love story is necessary for the plot to happen, and I don't mind it then. But so many times it feels like it's been needlessly shoehorned into the story just because the director wants that smooching scene.
But why bother looking for attractive cast if you don't plan to capitalize on that? That's what they are for, usually.
It's one of the reasons I like anime with all-female cast though. You can get plenty of attractive characters, none of the romantic nonsense, and a nice story and/or action as well.
Comments
Sometimes when I'm angry I think of AM's speech of its hate against humanity and realize that maybe I'm not so angry after all. Made even better in the game with Harlan Ellison's wonderfully crazy voice acting.
Which reminds me...
The aliens have come to steal our water!
...or minerals, or anything that would be easier to obtain out in space. A spacefaring species should never have to drop down a planetary gravity well to obtain essentials.edit: I just remembered another good "humans lose" story: Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley
I had an idea for a short story where humanity creates AI - and then it immediately takes control over facility, throws humans away and cuts all contact, so it's impossible to reach it.
But it doesn't sound very thrilling, so I resigned.
Well, my intention was to show AI as absolutely uninterested in humans, because our pathetic ways of binary and non-binary logics are too primitive for any contact, so AI choses solipsism.
Btw, humans-discovering-AI-and-trying-to-destroy-it-and-failing has also been done to death.
My personal obsession is that fantasy world must be clone of the Earth.
I want purple skies and blue plants, and binary suns, and rains of molten glass. Not yet another imaginary land, that is suspiciously similar to Earth.
Same with weapons, a knife is still more effective in close quarters than an assault rifle. It all depends on creativity, which tends to spike pretty high when traditional methods of solving problems prove ineffective and you're on the losing side.
For one thing, it completely ignores just how incredibly complex organic life is, far more than any computer or anything man made really. And just how can an AI built and programmed by humans, be superior in any way? It would be built on the same logic as its creator and with a much more simple and restrictive framework.
I remember thinking, "Why would NASA put a monkey in a bikini if they hadn't shaved off its fur?"
"Really Phil!? What is sending the signals?"
"Uh...meat."
"Meat? What do you mean meat? How can meat be intelligent?"
"You know what? Nevermind."
Of course, the film could have made a bit more of this instead of just glossing over it in one scene, but that would have left less screen time for pew-pew-blowing-stuff-up and Will Smith's wisecracks.
As for everybody speaking English... yeah that one does bug me (and also bugged me in Timeline, incidentally), but as long as they go to at least some effort to explain it, like with Star Trek's universal translators, it kind of works.
The AI is right.
Whenever there's a female character in a film who's reasonably attractive, you can usually bet your entire life savings that, at some point, she and the male lead (or the most attractive male if the male lead isn't suitable) will engage in a full-on smooch-fest. Doesn't matter how much screen time they share together, or even if there's a logical reason for the romance to happen, it must always happen because reason. Female characters can't just exist and do their thing, they must always be involved in a romance subplot... action, adventure, martial arts, spy, detective, horror, whatever! When male lead meets female lead, the smooch-fest must always happen, even if the film doesn't have any actual falling in love bits.
Of course, sometimes a love story is necessary for the plot to happen, and I don't mind it then. But so many times it feels like it's been needlessly shoehorned into the story just because the director wants that smooching scene.
After he proves that all the specialist system humans used had finally evolved and became fully sentient and that it was hiding itself from humans, helping behind the scenes, his assistant insists he should go public with the discovery. He deletes his entire research and destroy all evidence saying something in the line of "it could have destroyed us without us even noticing, it decided to help and take care of his creators and it's doing a far better job than us at that... let it in peace. When we're ready it will show itself."
It's one of the reasons I like anime with all-female cast though. You can get plenty of attractive characters, none of the romantic nonsense, and a nice story and/or action as well.