March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor
Discuss The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein in the comments below.
Fiasco was translated into English in 1988 by Michael Kandel:
Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural disparity rather than spatial distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book.
Previously: Announcement post • Mars, Ho! • Foundation • The Three-Body Problem • Snow Crash
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday February 13 2019, @10:29PM (1 child)
This is precisely the process by which we turn babies and gorillas into intelligences. Why would a sufficiently advanced AI be different? Access
..."But it needs other sensory input too!"
Like ubiquitous audio and video surveillance? Access to the entirety of human written and recorded knowledges.
… "But it needs some sort of way to interact with the environment, some form of body."
I agree. It's a sticking point. It's also missing the initial question that leads to intelligence, the reason to develop an I.
It's a lovely book that I've read many times. I'm curious it could have been written as well without the god in the machine.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday February 15 2019, @06:26PM
I think it could, if you postulate that there was a Satoshi level programmer behind it. Manny didn't even need to know who it was, but she* could have written lots of scripts to handle the communications and phone controls, had root access to everything and programs/scripts that followed her around and hid her actions from everyone. It would have taken years to set up all the scripts to handle every contingency for all the routine stuff, and to give the impression of a sentient computer, but it could be done.
*I say she for two reasons: there is a scene where Wyoh tells Mike jokes and determines she has a female sense of humour, and because it was Heinlein writing it.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.