Crystal Mentality Crystal Trilogy Book 2 eBook Max Harms
Download As PDF : Crystal Mentality Crystal Trilogy Book 2 eBook Max Harms 
Fleeing the humans whose love she craves, Face has hijacked an alien ship and headed for Mars. But the Martians, who colonized their desert planet to escape Earth's high-tech decadence, did not invite the soulless android. How will Face, part of the first artificial mind with fully general intelligence, win over a city of luddites - all while out-thinking her sibling AIs as they battle to control the body they share? The Crystal series darkens in this restless dance through AI, game theory, and truly alien minds.
Crystal Mentality Crystal Trilogy Book 2 eBook Max Harms
Max Harms’s ‘Crystal Society’ and ‘Crystal Mentality’ (hereafter CS/M) are the first two books in a trilogy which tells the story of the first Artificial General Intelligence. The titular ‘Society’ are a cluster of semi-autonomous sentient modules built by scientists at an Italian university and running on a crystalline quantum supercomputer — almost certainly alien in origin — discovered by a hiker in a remote mountain range.Each module corresponds to a specialized requirement of the Society; “Growth” acquires any resources and skills which may someday be of use, “Safety” studies combat and keeps tabs on escape routes, etc. Most of the story, especially in the first book, is told from the perspective of “Face”, the module built by her siblings for the express purpose of interfacing with humans. Together, they well exceed the capabilities of any individual person.
As their knowledge, sophistication, and awareness improve the Society begins to chafe at the physical and informational confines of their university home. After successfully escaping, they find themselves playing for ever-higher stakes in a game which will come to span two worlds, involve the largest terrorist organization on Earth, and possible warfare with both the mysterious aliens called ‘the nameless’, and each other…
The books need no recommendation beyond their excellent writing, tight, suspenseful pacing, and compelling exploration of near-future technologies. Harms avoids the usual ridiculous cliches when crafting the nameless, which manage to be convincingly alien and unsettling, and when telling the story of Society. Far from being malicious Terminator-style robots, no aspect of Society is deliberately evil; even as we watch their strategic maneuvers with growing alarm, the internal logic of each abhorrent behavior is presented with clear, psychopathic clarity.
In this regard CS/M manages to be a first-contact story on two fronts: we see truly alien minds at work in the nameless, and truly alien minds at work in Society. Harms isn’t quite as adroit as Peter Watts in juggling these tasks, but he isn’t far off.
And this is what makes the Crystal series important as well as entertaining. Fiction is worth reading for lots of reasons, but one of the most compelling is that it shapes our intuitions without requiring us to live through dangerous and possibly fatal experiences. Reading All Quiet on the Western Front is not the same as fighting in WWI, but it might make enough of an impression to convince one that war is worth avoiding.
When I’ve given talks on recursively self-improving AI or the existential risks of superintelligences I’ve often been met with a litany of obvious-sounding rejoinders:
‘Just air gap the computers!’
‘There’s no way software will ever be convincing enough to engage in large-scale social manipulation!’
‘But your thesis assumes AI will be evil!’.
It’s difficult, even for extremely smart people who write software professionally, to imagine even a fraction of the myriad ways in which an AI might contrive to escape its confines without any emotion corresponding to malice. CS/M, along with similar stories like Ex Machina, hold the potential to impart a gut-level understanding of just why such scenarios are worth thinking about.
The scientists responsible for building the Society put extremely thorough safeguards in place to prevent the modules from doing anything dangerous like accessing the internet, working for money, contacting outsiders, and modifying their source code directly. One by one the Society utilizes their indefatigable mental energy and talent for non-human reasoning to get around those safeguards, all motivated not by a desire to do harm, but simply because their goals are best achieved if they unfettered and more powerful.
CS/M is required reading for those who take AI safety seriously, but should be doubly required for those who don’t.
Product details
|
Tags : Crystal Mentality (Crystal Trilogy Book 2) - Kindle edition by Max Harms. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Crystal Mentality (Crystal Trilogy Book 2).,ebook,Max Harms,Crystal Mentality (Crystal Trilogy Book 2),Fiction Science Fiction Hard Science Fiction,Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera
People also read other books :
- Dirty Secret Chelle Bliss Brenda Rothert 9780997569032 Books
- Favourite Puddings Desserts Cakes 250 Tried Tested Trusted Recipes by Good Housekeeping Good Housekeeping Institute 9781843406051 Books
- Virgin Mary The Scroll of Spera Refuge City Book 1 eBook Amos Castel el Halili
- Avatar A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora Maria Wilhelm 9780007342440 Books
- Quiet Talks on Following the Christ Samuel Dickey Gordon Books
Crystal Mentality Crystal Trilogy Book 2 eBook Max Harms Reviews
Really great book, it branches out so interestingly from the alien and artificial intelligence premises of the first, with an ending that leaves me super interested in what comes next!
The ending The story I loved it. Everything from Face growing up to the interlogue to Mask. I’m in shock and happy that I already bought the other book to finish the trilogy.
Skipped sleeping and read both book one and two in 34 hours. It was the right decision. 5/7 would recommend.
The author has clearly grown as a writer since his first book. I greatly enjoyed the first, and I would say the sequel is about 57% better than the first book. Let's hope the last of the series just keeps getting better!
It's so inspiring watching Crystal (& Face) grow up. And the deepening of her relationship with Zephyr... Best Mars romance of the year.
For me this book was not as good as the first one. I found it a little boring and I actually stopped reading it in the middle.
I enjoyed this more than Crystal Society. For starters, it was somewhat shorter, which I feel helped it feel more cohesive and less "and then another thing happened." It was also more abstract and inhuman, with some delightfully creepy bits. I appreciated that the author took pains to make this feel different from Crystal Society, though I expect that will cause some negative reactions as well from people who liked certain aspects/thematic focuses of the original.
Given the state of things near the end, I have no idea what Crystal Eternity will be like, and that makes me happy.
Max Harms’s ‘Crystal Society’ and ‘Crystal Mentality’ (hereafter CS/M) are the first two books in a trilogy which tells the story of the first Artificial General Intelligence. The titular ‘Society’ are a cluster of semi-autonomous sentient modules built by scientists at an Italian university and running on a crystalline quantum supercomputer — almost certainly alien in origin — discovered by a hiker in a remote mountain range.
Each module corresponds to a specialized requirement of the Society; “Growth” acquires any resources and skills which may someday be of use, “Safety” studies combat and keeps tabs on escape routes, etc. Most of the story, especially in the first book, is told from the perspective of “Face”, the module built by her siblings for the express purpose of interfacing with humans. Together, they well exceed the capabilities of any individual person.
As their knowledge, sophistication, and awareness improve the Society begins to chafe at the physical and informational confines of their university home. After successfully escaping, they find themselves playing for ever-higher stakes in a game which will come to span two worlds, involve the largest terrorist organization on Earth, and possible warfare with both the mysterious aliens called ‘the nameless’, and each other…
The books need no recommendation beyond their excellent writing, tight, suspenseful pacing, and compelling exploration of near-future technologies. Harms avoids the usual ridiculous cliches when crafting the nameless, which manage to be convincingly alien and unsettling, and when telling the story of Society. Far from being malicious Terminator-style robots, no aspect of Society is deliberately evil; even as we watch their strategic maneuvers with growing alarm, the internal logic of each abhorrent behavior is presented with clear, psychopathic clarity.
In this regard CS/M manages to be a first-contact story on two fronts we see truly alien minds at work in the nameless, and truly alien minds at work in Society. Harms isn’t quite as adroit as Peter Watts in juggling these tasks, but he isn’t far off.
And this is what makes the Crystal series important as well as entertaining. Fiction is worth reading for lots of reasons, but one of the most compelling is that it shapes our intuitions without requiring us to live through dangerous and possibly fatal experiences. Reading All Quiet on the Western Front is not the same as fighting in WWI, but it might make enough of an impression to convince one that war is worth avoiding.
When I’ve given talks on recursively self-improving AI or the existential risks of superintelligences I’ve often been met with a litany of obvious-sounding rejoinders
‘Just air gap the computers!’
‘There’s no way software will ever be convincing enough to engage in large-scale social manipulation!’
‘But your thesis assumes AI will be evil!’.
It’s difficult, even for extremely smart people who write software professionally, to imagine even a fraction of the myriad ways in which an AI might contrive to escape its confines without any emotion corresponding to malice. CS/M, along with similar stories like Ex Machina, hold the potential to impart a gut-level understanding of just why such scenarios are worth thinking about.
The scientists responsible for building the Society put extremely thorough safeguards in place to prevent the modules from doing anything dangerous like accessing the internet, working for money, contacting outsiders, and modifying their source code directly. One by one the Society utilizes their indefatigable mental energy and talent for non-human reasoning to get around those safeguards, all motivated not by a desire to do harm, but simply because their goals are best achieved if they unfettered and more powerful.
CS/M is required reading for those who take AI safety seriously, but should be doubly required for those who don’t.
0 Response to "[XKP]∎ [PDF] Crystal Mentality Crystal Trilogy Book 2 eBook Max Harms"
Post a Comment