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"...being predictive, being right about the future, is not the point of any given story or novel. The point is about exploring as wide a range of possibilities as possible."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Construct | ||
| A stored version of a person's particular skills and personal approaches to problems. |
One of the greatest hackers in the novel Neuromancer is a man named McCoy Pauley, also known at the Dixie Flatline. Unfortunately, Pauley was dead at the time of the novel; his skills were available in the form of a construct, an artificial intelligence in the shape of this man's skills.
| Molly had gone back to the loft hours ago, the Flatline's construct in her green bag, and Case had been drinking steadily ever since. It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct, a hardwired ROM cassette replicating a dead man's skills, obsessions, knee-jerk responses. |
| From Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Pauley got his name by his remarkable capacity to persevere despite counter intrusion programs that could actually cause seizures and death. He flatlined on his EEG, and showed Case (the protagonist of the novel) the tapes. "Boy, I was daid."
For an elaborated (and very elegant) version of something very similar, see recorded personality, from Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive. See also the Neuro-netsukes from Rim (1994) by Alexander Besher.
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Now, that was a Pontiac Trans Am with some real style.
'There is a built-in microphone that hears everything you say, and an electric brain that selects a suitable answer.'
