Book two of Becky Chamber’s Wayfarer series, A Closed and Common Orbit, was – for me – better than the first. You wonder whether I liked it more because it is preoccupied with what it means to be human? With what agency and identity is owed a sentient AI intelligence? With what we owe in respect, or time, or care, or compassion for other species – particular the AI kind? Well… yes. Yes that is why I liked it more.
I am, as they say, a little obsessed with wondering about our AI future. And while I have a new job that is 96% less AI then my previous one, I find myself still reading the things and listening and thinking and wondering – (like maybe we all ought to stop investing in our retirements when super intelligence is years away, but then what respectable millennial has a decent retirement plan, anyway?).
Continue reading
Literary Vice 