Science Fiction Tried to Warn Us about AI. Or Did It?, by Tom Gammarino Essay [email protected] Wed, 03/01/2023 - 03:46 Photo by NASA / Unsplash “All our AI Frankenstein stories,” the author writes, “warn us that AI will destroy us, but far louder than that, they promise that the future is going to be mind-blowing and epic.” Will we heed the warnings? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the literary work that most clearly established the conventions of science fiction as we know it. Not only did the 1818 novel pioneer the archetype of the mad scientist, it also established one of the genre’s most important cultural roles: to warn us about ways humans, through our hubris, might create the very beings that eventually undo us. In subtitling the novel The Modern Prometheus, Shelley harked back to the Titan who stole fire from the gods and was punished by having his regenerating liver devoured every day by an eagle (since the liver was the seat of the emotions for the Greeks, we might as well translate it as “heart”). Inspired by the experiments of Luigi Galvani, who used electric current to stimulate the leg of a dissected frog, and his nephew Giovanni Aldini, who ran a similar experiment on a hanged criminal, Shelley had her mad scientist play God by endowing a patchwork of human remains with the spark of life. Two centuries later, the resulting monstrosity serves as a stand-in for any of our runaway technologies — the internal... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2023-03-01 09:46:57 UTC ]
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James Horobin, previously group sales, marketing and publicity director at Simon & Schuster, is to join the recently launched Bonnier Publishing Fiction division as executive director with responsibility for sales and marketing. Horobin, who left S&S last month, will take up his new... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Passion! Mystery! Crime! After the Australian government banned the import of American pulp magazines at the onset of the second world war, publisher Frank Johnson stepped into the market with a flurry of crime, adventure and romance novels. Drawn from his archives, a collection of cover art,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has hired Claire Ward as fiction art director, joining from Transworld where she has worked for 25 years. Ward, who will begin at HarperCollins in July, has designed covers for titles such as Before I Go to Sleep, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, The Book Thief and The Girl... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors Haruki Murakami, Erwin Mortier and Daniel Kehlmann have made the shortlist for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Also shortlisted for the £10,000 award are two writers whose work has been translated from Spanish into English for the first time: Tomás González and Juan Tomás... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Canongate has signed a new work of non-fiction from Man Booker Prize-shortlisted and Orange Prize-winning author Kate Grenville. Editorial director of fiction Louisa Joyner signed UK rights in One Life from Michael Heyward at Text Publishing. The book tells the story of Grenville's mother... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Novelist Marilynne Robinson and cartoonist Roz Chast were among the winners at the National Book Critics Circle. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Free e-lending in libraries could cause "serious damage" to the bookselling industry, Booksellers Association (BA) chief Tim Godfray has said. Speaking as part of the Chief Executive Panel at the BA's Academic, Professional and Specialist Conference at Surrey's Wotton House yesterday (11th... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Karl Ove Knausgaard and Haruki Murakami are among the authors whose work features on the longlist for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Meanwhile books originally written in German take five of the 15 spots, and Quercus has three titles on the selection. The Independent Foreign... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Deepak Chopra's 10th novel continues his quest to explore spiritual mysteries through stories. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-03-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Totally Entwined Group has signed a three-book fiction deal with “The Only Way is Essex” star Jess Wright for its Celebritease imprint. Claire Siemaszkiewicz, founder and c.e.o. of Totally Entwined Group, said: “We are delighted to be working with the gorgeous Jess Wright on her first... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tom Rob Smith scores his first UK Top 50 number one with the paperback of his latest thriller, The Farm. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waterstones and HarperCollins will host a joint literary festival celebrating crime fiction, with a combination of virtual and literary events. The Killer Crime Festival will be held over the 13th and 14th March, with live events taking place at Waterstones stores alongside an online festival... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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On the eve of the biggest event of the Sprint Cup Series, Nascar is beginning an effort to get kids more interested in science and math through auto racing.Timed to coincide with Sunday's 57th Daytona 500, the Nascar Acceleration Nation program will look to steer primary schoolers into a greater... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2015-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Atef Abu Saif, Jana Elhassan, Lina Huyan Elhassan, Shukri al-Mabkhout, Ahmed al-Madeeni and Hammour Ziada are the six authors shortlisted for the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The shortlisted was revealed by a judging panel chaired by Palestinian poet and writer, Mourid... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In popular genres such as sci-fi and fantasy, fan fiction based on the Wattpad model could easily disrupt the publishing industryFor a few years in the mid 2000s, I was the young librarian who got sent to schools to convince kids they really did want to read books. The truth of my experience was... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-02-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Christian publishers are not in panic mode despite recent Nielsen BookScan numbers indicating Christian fiction sales dropped 15 percent from 2013 to 2014. Houses with major fiction programs remain optimistic about the category and are not pulling back. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins non-fiction will publish a biography of Sir Tom Jones ahead of his 75th birthday this year. Natalie Jerome signed rights to the biography and a further book from Sean Smith in October, but did not reveal the subject of the book. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In an oft-cited statistic, Chad Post, publisher of Open Letter Books at the University of Rochester and an outspoken advocate for books in translation, estimates that 3% of fiction and poetry books published in the U.S. are translations. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Roger Tagholm imagines how other characters from fiction would react to the news that Harper Lee is giving Scout Finch a second chance at life. The post How Are Famous Fictional Characters Reacting to Scout’s Return? appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jane Harris is to join the Bonnier Publishing Fiction division as executive director for children's fiction. Harris will report to recently appointed Bonnier Publishing Fiction c.e.o. Mark Smith, and will be responsible for all the company's children's fiction output, including imprints Hot Key... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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