Fiction for Less Wrong: The Gulf Between

[feotakahari]

The Gulf Between is a short story about a programmer who wants to make robots more like people and a spy who wants to make people more like robots. It’s aggressively 1950s in both its setting and its attitudes, but it has an unusually good grasp on how the Soviet Union functioned and the kind of world its leaders tried to create.

I mention it because its portrayal of artificial intelligence reminds me of the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky. If you’re a Yudkowsky fan, I think you’ll find it interesting to compare how ideas of the inhuman A.I. have evolved over the decades. (And if you have no idea who Yudkowsky is, I recommend reading it anyway–this approach to A.I. is surprisingly uncommon.)