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" I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it's only five minutes, and write three sentences. And if I feel like going on, or if something turns me on I'll just keep writing till I'm written out."
- Roger Zelazny
 |
| Electromagnetic Shotgun | ||
| A device to shut down an artificial intelligence if it becomes dangerous. |
In the novel, Gibson created the idea of "Turing registry agents" that checked up on AI developments like Wintermute:
"Depends. Some aren't much smarter than dogs. Pets. Cost a fortune anyway. The real smart ones are as smart as the Turing heat lets them get..."
"How smart's an AI, case?"
| "Autonomy, that's the bugaboo, where your AI's are concerned. My guess, Case, you're going in there to cut the hard-wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I can't see how you'd distinguish, say, between a move the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that's maybe where the confusion comes in." Again the non laugh. "See, those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself smarter, Turing'll wipe it. Nobody trusts those fuckers, you know that. Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead." |
| From Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the cutoff switch (1982) from 2010, by Arthur C. Clarke.
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Electromagnetic Shotgun-related
news articles:
- How Smart Should Artificial Intelligences Get?
- How Smart Should AI's Be Allowed To Get?
- Patent Office Says AIs Cannot Be Inventors
| AVATECT Prevents Spoofing Of Avatars |
| I Really Want A Folding Computer |
| Galaxy Z Fold 3 Perfect For William Gibson's 'Control-Face' |
| Poor Humans. Miami Herald Bot Writes Great Real Estate Articles. |
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