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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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Tue, 01/11/2011 - 15:42 Avon has become the latest publisher to acquire a book tying into the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Editorial director Claire Bord bought world English rights to two novels by Gill Paul from Vivien Green at Shiel... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Fri, 28/10/2011 - 10:53 Actress and Loose Women co-presenter Lynda Bellingham has signed a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster to write commercial women's fiction. Publishing director Suzanne Baboneau signed the deal with Gordon Wise at Curtis... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 27/10/2011 - 08:15 HarperCollins has appointed Katrina Troy, currently head of commercial affairs for Vintage and Mainstream Publishing, as its commercial director for its fiction division. Troy will join in January 2012 and report to group... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 24/10/2011 - 09:20 The Publishers Association has warned publishers over a directory fraud, which appears to offer a free listing in the guide to the Bologna Book Fair, but in fact could charge publishers almost $2,000. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 14/10/2011 - 11:25 Popular science writer Simon Singh has accepted a six-figure world English language rights pre-empt made at Frankfurt for his next book, The Mathematics of The Simpsons. The deal, Singh's first since winning the legal case... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Tue, 11/10/2011 - 15:33 Publishers must take ownership of selling books or face quickly becoming irrelevant, former Borders UK chief Philip Downer told delegates at Tools of Change Frankfurt today (11th October). Downer said he was concerned that... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Tue, 11/10/2011 - 09:00 Literary agents speaking at Publishers Launch Frankfurt have challenged publishers to approach ebook royalty discussions in a more "knowledgeable" way or face a "reckoning" from the digital revolution. But there are signs of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 07/10/2011 - 11:04 The Bodley Head has acquired a title about the science behind sound, written by the president of the Institute of Acoustics, Trevor Cox. Editor Kay Peddle bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Peter Tallack at the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Fri, 30/09/2011 - 08:55 Publishers should not be too quick to write off physical products and should encourage competition between a number of digital players to avoid the mistakes the record industry made, the director general of the Entertainment... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 11/08/2011 - 15:20 The lawyer representing Brent library campaigners has warned Brent council not to undermine the borough's library services while both parties await the results of July's High Court judicial review. The judge in the case, Mr... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 28/07/2011 - 14:22 HarperPress will no longer publish fiction by the end of June 2012 with the publisher choosing to concentrate on non-fiction in the wake of Clare Smith's upcoming departure to Little, Brown. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 05/07/2011 - 16:04 Dawn Frenchs début novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous (Penguin), retains its position at the summit of The Official UK Top 50 week-on-week, thanks to a promotional appearance on ITVs This Morning, and a £2.99 if you spend £10... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Young-adult books are being sold to an audience that can't vote, yet they're being written by people commonly referred to on the Internet as "the olds." We should know. We're two of them. Both of us have made our living writing. One of us in journalism (Grady) and the other in literary fiction... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2011-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fiction is the leading sales driver of ebooks, and just how dominant that segment has been is clearly seen in a new market study just released by Bowker. According to "20102011 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Review," fiction accounted for 61% of unit sales in 2010... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-06-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Mon, 06/06/2011 - 08:59 The outgoing Children's Laureate Anthony Browne has warned society "will pay the price in the long term" for closing school and public libraries. In a letter to his successor, Browne urged them to campaign against their... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Katie Allen Publication Date: Thu, 19/05/2011 - 12:59 Three Random House Group titles have been picked for the first Fiction Uncovered promotion, which also includes two from indie Portobello. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Katie Allen Publication Date: Wed, 18/05/2011 - 09:18 The late lord chief justice Tom Bingham has been awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing for his book The Rule of Law (Penguin). Bingham, a former master of the rolls, lord chief justice, and senior law lord, died in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Katie Allen Publication Date: Wed, 18/05/2011 - 09:18 The late lord chief justice Tom Bingham has been awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing for his book The Rule of Law (Penguin). Bingham, a former master of the rolls, lord chief justice, and senior law lord, died in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Thu, 28/04/2011 - 08:30 Selling Waterstone's for less than £70m could force the HMV Group into a company voluntary arrangement, analysts have warned. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 20/04/2011 - 09:45 The BBC is broadcasting an item on The Culture Show about science fiction next month, in the wake of a row about the broadcasters approach to genre fiction. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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