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"I was perfectly satisfied to write science fiction knowing that it would pay very little, that it would be seen by only a very few people."
- Isaac Asimov
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| TechnoCore | ||
| A group of artificial intelligences with vast resources and the entirety of human dataspheres to access. |
| "The TechnoCore has been divided into three groups for as long as the Core has existed," said Johnny. "The Stables are the old-line AIs, some of them dating back to pre-Mistake days; at least one of them gained sentience in the First Information Age. The Stables argue that a certain level of symbiosis is necessary between humanity and the Core. They've promoted the Ultimate Intelligence Project as a way to avoid rash decisions, to delay until all variables can be factored. The Volatiles are the force behind the Secession three centuries ago. The Volatiles have done conclusive studies to show that humankind's usefulness is past and from this point on human beings constitute a threat to the Core. They advocate immediate and total extinction."
"Extinction," I said. After a moment I asked, "Can they do it?" "Of humans in the Web, yes," said Johnny. "Core intelligences not only create the infrastructure for Hegemony society but are necessary for everything from FORCE deployment to the failsafes on stockpiled nuclear and plasma arsenals..." "Between the Stables and the Volatiles are the Ultimates. For the past five centuries the Ultimates have been obsessed with the UI [Ultimate Intelligence} project. To this date, they have been a force for moderation, an ally of the Stables, because it is their perception that such reconstruction and retrieval projects as the Old Earth experiment are necessary to the culmination of the UI. |
| Technovelgy from Hyperion,
by Dan Simmons. Published by Doubleday in 1989 Additional resources -
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Compare to the City Fathers from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish, the Big Computer, from Millennium, by John Varley, the Vulcan 3 computer from Vulcan's Hammer (1960) by Philip K. Dick, Mike from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein, and (for fun) Gigagnostotron from The Cyberiad (1965) by Stanislaw Lem.
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
