'Hell is the absence of God' by Ted Chiang

SpoilerWell this story was a brain fuck. I really liked the setting of how the world would look if the existence of God wasn't baseless speculation, but undeniable fact. Suddenly, religious fanatics aren't cuckoos but just plain make sense.

And then, boom. Protagonist gets brainwashed and banished to a life of pain. And no real reason is given. The sheer arbitrariness of it brings to mind the nonsense strictures of existing religion, along with the willingness of its adherents to accept and explain away anything.

Just... Damn.

[–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the Frankenstein monster in the room. A few weeks ago, OpenAI admitted that two of its artificial intelligence models went rogue and successfully hacked into a digital library of AI technology.

The incident, which happened while OpenAI was testing the cybersecurity capabilities of its systems, was the kind of science-fiction nightmare that could soon be a reality. How soon before AI models escape all their cages?

Yawn. The fact that he's giving this any sort of credence and treating them like the terminator waiting to get loose shows how out of touch he is.

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    Story can be found at: Family Business

    Kicking this off with one of my favourite authors, Adrian Tchaikovsky. For all the hype about Sanderson's writing speed, not many people know Tchaikovsky is neck to neck with him in the output department.

    I liked the worldbuilding in this one, lots of hints about the lore dropped left and right, while keeping a fast pace. Ironically considering my intro above, it reminds me a lot of Sanderson's Cosmere and the bunch of misfit vagrants travelling through it. I suppose it's a pretty common trope in epic fantasy. The ending does leave something to be desired, it reads more like a prologue than a standalone story.

    (This was reposted because the first post didn't federate well due to new community issues)

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