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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
 |
| Big Computer | ||
| Just like it says; this computer knows it all. |
The Big Computer plays an important role in the novel; I don't want to say more. What I really liked was the way it was characterized in the book; it would appear to you the way you want. If you had a BC, a computer that could pass the Turing test, how would you have it serve you?
| I said, "Listen up, motherfucker."
And the Big Computer answered, "What the hell do you want?" No toadying servomechanisms for me. When I accessed, I wanted to feel like I was talking to something at least as nasty as I was. Everybody I know likes to have the BC simper at them like a receptionist or baritone its words like a wide-screen Jehovah. Not me. The BC obliges by seeming to barely tolerate me. |
| Technovelgy from Millennium,
by John Varley. Published by Berkley Books in 1983 Additional resources -
|
Would your computer be servile, or just serviceful?
An interesting comparison can be made with the City Fathers, from Cities in Flight, published by James Blish in 1957.
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and Technology by John Varley
Tech news articles related to Millennium
Tech news articles related to works by John Varley
Big Computer-related
news articles:
- Will AIs Give Better Results If You're Rude To Them?
| Rogue AI Replicated Itself |
| When AI Takes Its First Breath |
| Japan's AI Buddharoid Automonks |
| Lawyer AIs Create Chaos In Our Legal System |
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'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'If you surf over a bump, the spokes contract to roll over it.'
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...'
