[FrustratedMonky]

So I'm not providing a good literary survey of books with similar tropes and providing some of the positive ones? There are literally half dozen very famous negative examples, but I didn't do good enough search to find a positive one?

That would be like every comment on AI should include some example from The Culture Series as an example that all this AI stuff could great.

[stavros]

No man, it's just that saying "this scenario is popular because it makes for a good story therefore it'll happen in reality" is an absurd point to make.

[FrustratedMonky]

Taking scientific breakthroughs and extrapolating and/or comparing to Science Fiction? Shock, clutch my pearls, who would do such a thing. The absurdity. Surely nobody has done this before.

[stavros]

And they were all about as right as chance!

[FrustratedMonky]

Sure. If you take all of Science Fiction, if you want, take all of Literature. And compare it to everything that actually has happened. Then Fiction has guessed at more things than have actually happened. So, a poor predictor.

Not sure what that point is proving. We shouldn't look at fiction for any inspiration or cautionary tales? Just shut up and calculate?

[stavros]

The point is proving that "chickens now, maybe humans later" is just an extremely poor predictor. It's a useless disapproval of a new technology based on "hey, you can't prove it won't happen!".

[FrustratedMonky]

Never said it is a proof.

But it is a necessary step.

So, we might not get humans. Ok, but we also wont get humans without simpler test cases along the way. Simpler animals, simpler mechanisms. So now we are taking those steps.

We can't see the end, but we are on the road.

Maybe that is why the fictional stories resonate here. It is easy to see the possible connections. Easy to make the leap from here, to what could be. Even if it is not an actual predictor like a scientific proof.