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"It's hard to tell stories about critters that are not human. John W. Campbell tried it, in "Twilight," and everybody says it's a wonderful story, and nobody ever reads it twice."
- Jerry Pournelle

BLIT (Secret Basilisk)  
  The Berryman Logical Image Technique can "shock" an AI trained to do pattern recognition.  

SECRET * BASILISK

Distribution UK List B[iv] only ... so called because its outline, when processed for non-hazardous viewing, is generally considered to resemble that of the bird. A processed (anamorphically elongated) partial image appears in Appendix 3 of this report, page A3-ii. the stated page must NOT be viewed through ANY FORM OF CYLINDRICAL LENS. PROLONGED VIEWING IS STRONGLY DISRECOMMENDED...

This first example of the Berryman Logical Image Technique {hence the usual acronym BLIT) evolved from AI work at the Cambridge IV supercomputer facility, now discontinued. V. Berryman and C.M. Turner [3] hypothesized that pattern recognition programs of sufficient complexity might be vulnerable to “Godelian shock input” in the form of data incompatible with internal representation. Berryman went further and suggested that the existence of such a potential input was a logical necessity. . .

Technovelgy from Blit, by David Langford.
Published by Interzone in 1988
Additional resources -

Compare to nerve control lines from The Rull by AE van Vogt, Van Goom's Gambit from Van Goom's Gambit (1966) by Victor Contoski and the ugly T-shirt from Zero History (2010) by William Gibson.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Blit
  More Ideas and Technology by David Langford
  Tech news articles related to Blit
  Tech news articles related to works by David Langford

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