Ais Quotes

Well I have to jam but let me know if you want to talk or if, like, you want any additional info on Hsin. I may not be close to him as a person but I'm kind of a Vega lexicon. I've studied him like a creeper for a while. It's a little gross. This obsession should really stop sometime before they think I'm a stalker. ~ Ais

Right then, he thanked his mother for the coldness she'd taught him; for the clarity it could bring, for the protection it represented. Because if he didn't do this he knew he'd fall apart; he knew he wouldn't be able to contain the anger and hurt. ~ Ais

That was fucking awesome," Boyd enthused with a huge grin.
"It's pretty amazing," Kassian agreed, taking off his own helmet. "I had a feeling you'd appreciate it considering your taste in cars and men. Fast, powerful and dangerous and all that stuff, right? ~ Ais

Human individuals and human organizations typically have preferences over resources that are not well represented by an "unbounded aggregative utility function". A human will typically not wager all her capital for a fifty-fifty chance of doubling it. A state will typically not risk losing all its territory for a ten percent chance of a tenfold expansion. [T]he same need not hold for AIs. An AI might therefore be more likely to pursue a risky course of action that has some chance of giving it control of the world. ~ Nick Bostrom

Centuries of navel-gazing. Millennia of masturbation. Plato to Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional cluster.

I explored it all.

Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself.

Not even the synthesists had been able to rotate it down. The load-bearing beams just couldn't take the strain.

All of them, I began to realize, had missed the point. All those theories, all those drugdreams and experiments and models trying to prove what consciousness was: none to explain what it was good for. None needed: obviously, consciousness makes us what we are. It lets us see the beauty and the ugliness. It elevates us into the exalted realm of the spiritual. Oh, a few outsiders - Dawkins, Keogh, the occasional writer of hackwork fiction who barely achieved obscurity - wondered briefly at the why of it: why not soft computers, and no more? Why should nonsentient systems be inherently inferior? But they never really raised their voices above the crowd. The value of what we are was ~ Peter Watts

A life without living was simply a death without dying. ~ Ais

You can still be someone new without giving up everything you cared about before. ~ Ais

Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called 'pigheadedness'. ~ Neal Asher

Too bad in the Agency's eyes a person was only truly the hero when they were the villain. ~ Ais

The journey of a thousands suns begins today.

Some may question whether the journey is worth the sacrifice and danger.

To them I say that no sacrifice is too dear and no danger too great to ensure the very survival of our human species.

What will we find when we arrive at our new homes? That's an open question. For a century, deep-space probes have reported alien lifeforms, but thus far none of which we recognize as intelligent beings. Are we the only biological intelligence in the universe? Perhaps our definition of intelligence is too narrow, too specio-centric.

For, are not trees intelligent, who know to shed their leaves at the end of summer? Are not turtles intelligent, who know when to bury themselves in mud under ice? Is not all life intelligent, that knows how to pass its vital essence to new generations?

Because half of intelligence resides in the body, be it plant or animal.

I now commend these brave colonists to the galaxy, to join their minds and bodies to the community of living beings they will encounter there, and to establish our rightful place among the stars. ~ David Marusek

Don't you have anything better to fucking do other than babysit and eventually get killed by some psycho?"
"No." Boyd said without hesitation. "I don't. ~ Santino Hassell

Sin raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember it being very difficult," he said blandly.
Carhart looked back at him and after a moment rolled his eyes, which was both surprising and amusing at the same time. "Fine. Kassian and I can tell you that, since we're currently the only two normal people alive who have gone through it. I forgot that we are in the presence of Super Agent. Forgive my lapse."
"You're forgiven," Sin replied with a smirk. ~ Ais

Kassian arched a brow at Boyd as they made the short walk to Boyd's house. "You have no idea at all? I'm looking for an SUV of some kind although I'd prefer another truck. I can't drive those tiny ass cars they make now. I feel like if I get in an accident I'll be crushed instantly."
"That's why I want one that's fast and easy to handle," Boyd said wryly. "To get out of the way of you crazy SUV drivers. ~ Ais

no simple mechanism could do the job as well or better. It might simply be that nobody has yet found the simpler alternative. The Ptolemaic system (with the Earth in the center, orbited by the Sun, the Moon, planets, and stars) represented the state of the art in astronomy for over a thousand years, and its predictive accuracy was improved over the centuries by progressively complicating the model: adding epicycles upon epicycles to the postulated celestial motions. Then the entire system was overthrown by the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which was simpler and - though only after further elaboration by Kepler - more predictively accurate.63 Artificial intelligence methods are now used in more areas than it would make sense to review here, but mentioning a sampling of them will give an idea of the breadth of applications. Aside from the game AIs ~ Nick Bostrom

Every birthday, every winter, had been completely chaotic since he'd joined the Agency. It seemed like ever since he'd met Sin, Boyd couldn't last through the month of November without at least something going to complete hell. ~ Ais

They talk about myths: the myth that links testosterone to libido, for example, in both men and women. If the myth were true, then these women should have no sex drive; they can't, after all, respond to the testosterone their bodies produce. Some sex researchers have said as much about AIS patients - that they're frigid, uninterested, dead in bed. The women themselves come close to spitting in rage at that sort of talk. Whether or not they manage to inflate their vaginas sufficiently to have intercourse, their erotic nature remains intact. They fantasize about sex. They are orgasmic. They lust when there is somebody worth lusting after. ~ Natalie Angier

He looked in front of him again, towards the man he had been talking to, but no one was there. Boyd blinked in surprise and stared at the shadows. It was a dead end alley with the only exit past Boyd and the walls of the surrounding buildings were straight up with no way to climb them. Where the hell did he go? Boyd hadn't heard even a whisper of movement. Granted, there was the commotion behind him, but that shouldn't have mattered.
Boyd didn't spend much time on it, though. He just shook his head and muttered to himself in Kadin's drawl, The fuck is he, the Mexican Batman? ~ Ais

Tough choice," Sin said in a droll tone. "What are the odds that any of this shit will actually work on me?"
"With your system? I suspect you need a horse tranquilizer or two. ~ Ais

I had more to say," Sin said, still looking frustrated. "But it doesn't come out right when I try. I always say the wrong things."
Boyd nodded but he was so caught by their proximity, by the green of Sin's eyes, that at first he struggled with his own words.
"It's alright," he said at last. "As long you don't hate me, it's enough."
"That is not enough," Sin growled. "Not by a goddamn long shot. You just have no idea, Boyd. No fucking clue."
"About what?"
"Everything. Why I acted the way I did ... Why I was so pissed off. It will never make any sense to you because I don't know how to explain."
"So try," Boyd pressed. "Please."
"I don't know how. ~ Ais

Standing back and staring blankly at the glass, he realized he had no idea what it meant to preheat. Obviously he heated it prior to something, but to what?
-Boyd ~ Ais

Why do we need so many people on Earth? I ask you. What are they good for? They live out ludicrous lives of pointless desperation. Ninety-nine percent of the human population is so much wasted resources. Stubborn vermin, we humans are.

Granted, in the past, the unwashed masses were necessary. We needed them to till our fields and fight our wars. We needed them to labor in our factories making consumer crap that we flipped back at them at a handsome profit.

Alas, those days are gone. We live in a boutique economy now. Energy is abundant and cheap. Mentars and robotic labor make and manage everything. So who needs people? People are so much dead white. They eat up our profits. They produce nothing but pollution and social unrest. They drive us crazy with their pissing and moaning. I think we can all agree that Corporation Earth is in need of a serious downsizing.
...
The boutique economy has no need of the masses, so let's get rid of them. But how, you ask? Not with wars, surely, or disease, famine, or mass murder. Despots have tried all these methods through the millennia, and they're never a permanent solution.

No, all we need to do is buy up the ground from under their feet -- and evict them. We're buying up the planet, Bishop, fair and square. We're turning it into the most exclusive gated community in history. Now, the question is, in two hundred years, will you be a member of the landowners club, or will you be living in some tin ~ David Marusek

Hi," she blurted, seeming surprised that she'd actually said it.
At the sound of someone voluntarily speaking to Sin, Boyd looked over at her; although his expression would have seemed neutral to most people, Sin knew him well enough to recognize that he was surprised. ~ Ais

Me and Zachary used to share women. I'm surprised he didn't tell you 'bout that."
Morgan's eyes snapped over to Carhart and her hands froze on the sweater that she'd grabbed from the sofa.
Carhart just rolled his eyes. "He's lying."
Emilio laughed and didn't deny it. "Oh, right. That was Douglas."
"What?" Morgan looked even more scandalized now. "Instructor Ferguson? ~ Ais

Sin was like puzzle pieces floating on a river; once a few were placed together, the current pulled the outer edges apart and scattered the pieces away once again. ~ Ais

Evolution is largely a temporal phenomenon, Merrill. The environment changes, and populations in that environment change in turn, or they languish. Individual organisms don't evolve; populations do. Nature doesn't give a damn about individuals. The only role we play in evolution is surviving long enough to give birth to offspring who are slightly different from us. Some of our offspring will prosper in a changing environment, and some of them will not. As for us individuals, once we've reproduced, nature has no more use for us. We perish along with our ill-adapted young. Death has always been an essential factor in species survival.

Now consider the human race. We are a partial exception to the rule. Unlike other species, we have developed culture. Instead of adapting to a changing environment biologically, we can sometimes adapt to it culturally. If an Ice Age comes along, we don't need to grow fur on our bodies if we invent the fur coat. Culture allows us to adapt to almost any environment, including the harshest, like space. In fact, our cultural adaptation is so robust that it all but obviates the need to evolve biologically.

We are so good at adapting to changing conditions with our knowledge and technology that we may deceive ourselves into believing that we are above nature. But only a fools believes that. Nature always has the last word. A star in our neighborhood could go supernova and wipe out all life in our solar system, and no amount of cult ~ David Marusek

All those months Boyd had thought only of Sin. All those times he'd leaned on Sin's memory for strength and conviction. All those nights he'd woken in pain and forced himself to keep going because it was what Sin would have wanted ...
It hurt to know it may mean nothing. ~ Ais

There is no doubt that Earth Central, the planetary and sector AIs, and even some ship and drone AIs are capable, without acquiring additional processing space, of setting up synergetic systems within themselves that result in an exponential climb in intelligence (mathematically defined as climbing beyond all known scales within minutes). So why not? Ask then why a human, capable of learning verbatim the complete works of Shakespeare, instead drinks a bottle of brandy, then giggles a lot and falls over. ~ Neal Asher

Instead, it struck him deeply just how much he loved Sin.
And even as he acknowledged that, he realized he felt the emotion on a deeper, less
chaotic level than he had before. He had known he loved Sin for over a year but it had
never felt like such a simple statement of fact for his life before; it had never seemed so
undeniable and yet at the same time without any negativity.
Whereas there had been times before when the love he'd felt for Sin had seemed
almost desperate or painful, now as he hunched over Sin with his fingers grasping Sin's
slack hand, Boyd felt at peace with the knowledge. It was as if a weight were lifted from
his shoulders and he understood that he could be no other way. ~ Ais

What do you want?" Boyd whispered.

"You - ~ Ais

Intelligence doesn't always equate to common sense. Or, for that matter, the ability to fully choose one's path in life. ~ Ais

My lack of care is phenomenal. ~ Ais

It was as if there was a switch in Boyd's mind that said that if Sin was involved, it was alright to do anything he wanted. Boyd felt that either he was too close to Sin and all he could think about was the other man-- but with that came over-analyzing everything and becoming especially sensitive to any slights-- or a wall came up in his mind that made him not think of Sin enough. ~ Ais