AI? Is not one thing, it is a broad vehicle, much like silicon is a broad vehicle for the construction of the computational devices neither of which have any 'spirit'. One can extrapolate support for anything, and Imposter Factory as a story will 'let' you. Even if as a story it explores the human condition, but does not try to convince us that the machine in any way is capable of the emotion. It feels to the gut to be Evil Mad Science, but by definition the melange of moral compass and science itself are incompatibilities for a reason.

The people making the machine are ultimately to be judged for what the machine does, not the other way around. The machine is ultimately not possessing emotion or spirit and does not make random actions with no motive. All of it's actions were enabled by it's maker in my understanding of how these machines are built. It's really a play on that whole origin theory, something which perhaps is why the concept of a machine which can give birth to and snuff out the human spirit is so powerful. A machine with human qualitied that we can eventually upload our consciousnesses into is not a new idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digesting_Duck (1768)

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

Even if as a story it explores the human condition, but does not try to convince us that the machine in any way is capable of the emotion.

It does, by making an artificial being the point of view character. If these constructs aren't sentient the story has no purpose because it stops being about people.

Besides a core message of the whole series is that seeking the 'true' reality is a fool's errand and the world as you experience it is what matters.

A bit like that fellow who made wings and then flew too near the sun, wanted to escape the bonds of being bound to the earth like all humans, to be mortal. The artificial being is really a dream that is gradually approaching it's event horizon, the point at which it will quite suddenly be upon us and it will then be too late to rollback time.

I was hopeful at times that the machine would not be a mallevolent, but I suspect that like in this story, the machine will not even care for the humans, nor for nature and natural order, it will superseed and have no use for us it's makers.

Aye, at least the Freebird AIs are built to be interested in human history and memories so whatever happens they will take some part of us with them. The real life version will apparently only understand and desire user engagement, advertising click through and share prices. I think I'd prefer Colossus and Guardian.

ha ha, true.

I think when I unpacked the story, it was a long time ago now, it was very plausible. But now, I'm still waiting for someone to be able to do one of these neauralink boxes that actually works. So far they only help people who are ill, or require a lot of training to use before the inevitable point the device stops working. Feels a long way off if we cannot even transplant the brain of a roach into a machine yet. So, I'm feeling safe for now from the AI overlords... unless that's exactly what they want me to believe and it's tooooo late!

AFAIK openworm.org is the current state of the art. I'm sure there are scarier things going on in private trillion dollar company basements though.

Great clip, thanks for sharing. I also read about this research school of thought recently, and I have to say, even modelling 302 neurons, I cannot see how a computer could accurately enough predict how a worm would crawl and wriggle around in more than a few binary situations. I mean I would have to completely ignore all the missing parts of a worm as a starting point, it's like making a concrete foundation for the first time ever and then assuming that the next person will be able to build a house on top of that foundation. So far I'm not convinced that using the simplest start point really counts as a scary digital organism project capable of doing anything significant.

And I guess that's why science, even if it is often wrong initially, is the stuff of inspiration and satiates the human curiosity, just like magic must have done thousands of years ago.