[h2odragon]

Research demonology: have computers casting summons over fractal fragments looking for any whose phone numbers we don't already know. cf the works of Charlie Stross

Perhaps that pokemon game had more in it than we thought...

[neither_color]

I already have quite a few daemons in my PC. I communicate with them using launchd.

[throwanem]

You might like Scott Alexander's Unsong, freely available online. On the grounds of Yudkowsky's HPMOR, you could be excused for expecting fiction by rationalists to be generally terrible, and it is; Unsong is the exception, and proves if nothing else that Alexander missed his calling.

[yoloyoloyoloa]

Please explain? Are you talking about dwave?

[ben_w]

Charlie Stross is an author (and occasional poster here) who has a series collectively known as “The Laundry Files” in which magic can be performed by computers as well as by humans, by having the computers perform specific calculations.

[phendrenad2]

Also books by Aya Nishitani

[tobmlt]

Maybe… or The Atrocity Archives, or something from the laundry files… something along those lines perhaps.

Edit: somebody scooped me

[h2odragon]

if you mean these folks [1], then no; I think that falls under divination. I was thinking more about the graphical sigils; but there's surely other attractive signatures that could be found computationally, right?

More practical: synthesize sounds and play them in a garden, with some cameras and vision software to count insects attracted, perhaps classify by type. Add some seeking function and you might make a mechanical pied piper for pests.

Surely thats only an analogy. Cicadas are not actually demons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems

[tobmlt]

Is wishful thinking part of divination?

Then again they did manage to get, e.g. google and Lockheed Martin(?) To actually purchase some of their wishful thinking hardware. There might have been a deal with minor/slightly demonic imp to get that far.

2nd part - you could find the song of the mosquito. They suck blood at least, and seem to be good for nothing except feeding bats. So there’s that.