Question 1.
In the stories “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang and “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, different types of relationships between artificial intelligence and humans exist. Both stories show opposite relationships between AI and humans. In the story by Ted Chiang, the relationship is between AI’s called digients and humans. It was a caring one and can develop into a deeper level of connection. It was not too bad to be able to have an AI being your friend and to be able to train it the way you want to. In the story by Harlan Ellison, the relationship between AI and human was kind of terrifying. The AI was in complete control and was torturing the survivors. It is not somewhere anyone would want AI to have existed in the first place.
Although the relationship between AI and humans don’t seem seem bad in the story by Chiang, it might not develop well into the future. In the story, humans were able to go into a virtual world and buy the digients and train them to their liking. It seems cool but I think that developing relationships with AI’s can destroy your real relationships with other people in the story. An example is when Derek was getting a divorce from his wife because she didn’t want to continue training two digients. She probably wanted to have actual kids to raise. She said he was spending too much time with the digients too which at any time can be suspended or even shut off. He shouldn’t feel too bad because it is an AI after all. Derek had developed an attachment to the AI’s.
In the story by Ellison, the AI was dominant. I think that developing relationships between AI and humans can be scary and this story is a great example of it. The survivors had been trapped in the computer for more than one hundred years and the whole time they were being tortured. AI was in different countries in the world and eventually got more things added to it. Eventually, AI got smarter and was able to make its own choices and chose to keep them for torture. Developing relationship between AI according to this story should not be something to think about. AI is artificial intelligence so even if it may know how the survivors felt, it was easy for AI to torture them because it’s just a machine. The only emotion it got out of it was amusement and entertainment.
Interesting. I’d like to see you think through that last paragraph a little more. I guess my concern is even though Ellison’s story is almost 60 years old, it feels like a familiar trope of warning. Chiang’s is interesting in a completely different, more connected way to the way in which we live today.
The thought of AI getting as smart as they have in that novel is scary. There needs to be some type of stop to some AI.
I liked the contrast that you made between the two stories, I believe that the way AI is developed can change the outcomes of how the AI acts.
One interpretation is that AI will destroy humanity by complicating our interpersonal relationships. The other is that AI will physically destroy humanity. This is a very interesting perspective, being able to compare the two.
I do wonder, do you think AM is enjoying their messing with the five remaining, or just carrying out some sentient programming that is nothing more than revenge? Understood only as a machine could, devoid of emotion completely and focusing solely on maintaining the program.
I really like your summary about “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”, you manage to capture how dark and brutal the story is in a very simple and cohesive way, great job.