Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"There's a tendency to think that maybe if we can just throw enough hardware at the AI problem, then evolution can take care of the rest. Certainly that's how God went about making us."
- Rudy Rucker
 |
| Cybrid | ||
| An organic body used by an artificial intelligence. |
This interesting word is a combination of "cyborg" and "hybrid." From the way the character is used in the novel, it appears to be purely android - no metal parts. It is an extension of an artificial intelligence.
| Cybrids are a whole different matter. Tailored from human genetic stock, they are far more human in appearance and outward behavior than androids are allowed to be. Agreements between the TechnoCore and the Hegemony allow only a handful of cybrids in existence... From an AIs perspective, the beautiful body and intriguing personality sitting across the desk from me must be merely another appendage, a remote, some what more complex but otherwise no more important than any one of ten thousand such sensors, manipulators autonomous units or other remotes.. |
| Technovelgy from Hyperion,
by Dan Simmons. Published by Doubleday in 1989 Additional resources -
|
From this passage, the cybrid appears to be little more than a remote sensor, an input/output device. However, the development of the cybrid into a more complete, independent personality is an interesting theme in the book.
I’d heard about cybrids. Who hasn’t? I once accused my first husband of being one. But I never expected to be sitting in the same room with one. Or to find it so damned attractive.
Johnny was an AI. His consciousness or ego or whatever you want to call it floated somewhere in the megadatasphere dataumplane of the TechnoCore. Like everyone else except maybe the current Senate CEO or the AIs’ garbage removers, I had no idea where the TechnoCore was. The AIs had peacefully seceded from human control more than three centuries ago—before my time—and while they continued to serve the Hegemony as allies by advising the All Thing, monitoring the dataspheres, occasionally using their predictive abilities to help us avoid major mistakes or natural disasters, the TechnoCore generally went about its own indecipherable and distinctly nonhuman business in privacy.
Fair enough, it seemed to me.
Usually AIs do business with humans and human machines via the datasphere. They can manufacture an interactive holo if they need to — I remember during the Maui-Covenant incorporation, the TechnoCore ambassadors at the treaty signing looked suspiciously like the old holo star Tyrone Bathwaite.
Johnny — his real name was a code of digits, letters, and cipher bands longer than my arm — was a cybrid.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Hyperion
More Ideas
and Technology by Dan Simmons
Tech news articles related to Hyperion
Tech news articles related to works by Dan Simmons
| LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving |
| When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI |
| Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama |
| Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
