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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Chirpsithra Supercomputer | ||
| An alien race thoughtfully provides mankind with blueprints for the most intelligent computer ever made. |
This terrific short story by Larry Niven gives a somewhat less rosy view of the logical future of computing than you'll read in the typical PC magazine.
The chirpsithra are an alien race who have been around, well, practically forever from a human standpoint. They are regulars at the Draco Tavern, a watering hole (pub) built for humans and aliens right here on Earth. They're not easy to talk to, though, and you're never quite sure what they mean.
| One slow afternoon I asked a pair of chirpsithra about intelligent computers. "Oh yes, we built them," one said. "Long ago." "You gave up? Why?" One of the salmon-colored aliens made a chittering sound. The other said, "Reason enough. Machines should be proper servants. They should not talk back. Especially they should not presume to instruct their masters. Still, we did not throw away the knowledge we gained from the machines." |
| Technovelgy from Niven's Laws,
by Larry Niven. Published by Owlswick Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Gifts, like the blueprints for this computer, are especially suspect. This short quote is from a short story worth reading - it is a 1979 short story called The Schumann Computer, found in the collection cited below. The collection features a number of stories set in the Draco Tavern.
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Tech news articles related to Niven's Laws
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| AI Tries To Replicate Famous People |
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'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
'...a universal cryptogram — yet it is one which can be interpreted by any intelligent creature on any planet in the Solar System!'
