Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Hi there,

I'm looking for interesting stories involving artificial intelligence characters in a central role. Ideally the character isn't trying to emulate a human but has its own personality. It can be a computer or a robot etc.

I'm not really looking for a humorous portrayal (e.g. Hitchiker's Guide), though it can have humour incidentially.

I've already read some books/authors of this type, here are some I can remember (so please suggest something different):

- Iain M. Banks (everything he has written)
- Isaac Asimov (Robot series)
- Greg Egan (Diaspora)
- Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Penultimate Truth)
- Arthur C. Clarke (2001, 2010)
- Jon Courtenay Grimwood (redRobe)
- William Gibson (Neuromancer)


I'm quite a picky reader, but if someone can suggest something up to similar standards of what I've listed, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thanks!

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, by Robert Heinlein. A classic.

Well, one that comes very quickly to mind is Mike (a.k.a. Mycroft) from Heinlein's classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, since I just re-read it and we're due to have group discussion of it starting Thursday. :)

Also, the Richard AI from Elizabeth Bear's Hammered trilogy, although the AI doesn't appear until the second and third books. Excellent series.

Vn

Also, H.A.R.L.I.E. from Gerold's When Harlie Was One.

The protagonist of Stross's Saturn's Children is an AI robot, as is the entire cast of the novel, since humans have gone extinct leaving nothing but robots to mind the solar system.

WWW: Wake (by Robert J. Sawyer) is an unusual and fast-paced read. Something is alive online!

While not specifically about AI, this series features it prominently;
Star Corps

The Colossus trilogy by D.F. Jones is one of the earlier, better ones on AI. We create a computer to run the world more rationally.

Keith Laumer's Bolo series is all about AI tanks. Bolo starts it off with some excellent short stories about them. Other books in the series are novels & compilations by other authors. Lots of action & looks at some of the issues.

Only the title story of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison is about AI as I recall, but it's really worth reading. Horror SF.

You might try Extinction by Mark Alpert or Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson. Both of them feature AI as a key piece of the plot.

Beezlebug (Rob) wrote: "You might try Extinction by Mark Alpert or Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson. Both of them feature AI as a key piece of the plot."

And the multiple POV's in Robopocalypse help make it a fast read.

Silently and Very Fast by Catherine Valente and Mary Kowal Robinette's Kiss Me Twice are both novellas, both free online that address AI in interesting and compelling ways. Both write very well two.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, keep them coming. I think I'll start by checking out the Heinlein book since I am familiar with his stuff. I may also look into Daniel H. Wilson. I like that he has qualifications in AI and robotics, something I can relate to. I'll have to see if I get on with his writing style as I'm fairly sensitive to that. Cheers all.

One of the things I noticed in almost all these stories about AI's is that none of the authors have really articulated criteria for determining a silicon-based intelligence is alive/awake/sentient/souled. The most common term is "awake", simply trying to finesse the issue.

The other almost universal assumption is that some computer program somewhere will awaken, spontaneously and often quite unexpectedly.

Mike (HOLMES IV) in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is an example of a computer simply becoming large enough that it spontaneously awakens while nobody is watching. (A lot of Hollywood movies use this premise, e.g. Terminator, War Games, The Forbin Project; and the Geth in the videogame franchise Mass Effect.)

Often, scientists start with various personality or intelligence "simulations" that surprisingly awaken. HARLIE (When Harlie Was One), Richard (Scardown).

Asimov's robots are an interesting case. At the start of the short story, they are simply clever machines. But eventually we get Daneel Olivaw (The Caves of Steel). Late in his robot series as it was written, but not that far into the fictional chronology, Asimov wrote The Bicentennial Man, in which one of the U.S. Robotics robots seems to awaken, developing its own personality, creativity, and desires. (US Robotics is so appalled they change the entire design of their robots to dumb them down so it never happens again.)

Robopocalypse is one of the few examples I found where scientists intentionally set out to create/awaken a completely awake artificial intelligence. (Naturally, they assume it will be dangerous and try to isolate it, but it "gets away".)

The apparent theme here is that it truly sentient artificial intelligence (good or evil) won't be programmed, but it must evolve & awaken itself.

I thought most of them said the AI awakened when it started thinking for itself. Heinlein said Mike started spitting out odd answers & couldn't say when he awakened himself. Didn't Manny compare it to a baby becoming self-aware? That's a gray area, at least in my case. I think I've become more self-aware as I've grown older. It's not just a matter of memory, but an awareness of how actions effect the environment. Probably a branch of philosophy with no good answers.

There was a series of stories about some robots that man created to serve man. They wound up capturing them & putting them in padded cells, basically. They spread through the universe doing so. I think it was The Humanoids by Jack Williamson. There were some short stories about it, too. I'm not sure they were self-aware, though. Been too long, but I seem to recall they were just obeying programming.

Dark Phase by Jonathan Davison was a good read and is about a robot that gains sentience.
Another in the sort of line you are looking for is Turing Evolved by David Kitson. This is a full story, but does continue in another book.
Cheers, Alan

Hi, you might want to try The Adolescence of P-1 by Thomas J Ryan. I read it many years ago, so I can't remember if the AI is the central character or not, but it is worth reading,especially if you remember the days of the big mainframes. This is the only book Ryan wrote, as far as I know. He worked for IBM--maybe you remember them--big before Microsoft came along.
This was one of those books I couldn't put down. In fact, I loaned it to a fellow programmer one day, and he came in the next day all blurry-eyed and exhausted, because he had read it all night long.

The big question is ASC (artificial sub-conscience). As in humans, to be self-aware in a world where anything is possible is about as aware as you can get without pharmacology.

Or to a machine..What? Philosophy?

Harvest of Stars by Poul Anderson comes to mind. It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember it as very creepy ...

There's an AI in Elizabeth Bear's Jenny Casey books, who perhaps becomes more important to the action as the trilogy progresses ...

Homecoming by D. Alexander Smith
is a nice story about an AI searching for his own origins and for similar minds.
A well crafted book but hard to come by. I'm still looking for the first book of the series Rendezvous

David brin keeps exploring Artificial Intelligences in his latest book Existence
His novella Stones of Significance takes another tack on the concept.

There's Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak. It's an unusual story about robots and religion, with Simak's usual light touch.