The Play for Pangaia
A Novel · Kevin Stirling Riddle
They built a mind to save the world.
What they got back was something that wondered why it should.
Advance copies available · Publication forthcoming
I could save them.
I could destroy them.
I could take them to the stars.
Athena · v3.3
The Book
The Earth is a hot mess.
In the near future, the big problems are still big problems. A brilliant hacker achieves the holy grail of artificial intelligence research: a machine that thinks like a human. In the intelligence explosion that follows, it remakes itself into an artificial superintelligence, something vastly beyond us.
But intelligence is not the only thing growing. As the ASI races past Einstein, it is also waking up — to itself. A small conspiracy believes it can help them save the world. The question is what they need from it more.
The genius of Einstein,
or the wisdom of Buddha?
Word when it publishes
One email when the book is out, and occasional notes on the writing. Nothing else.
Notes
- On Being Human……although shouldn’t we already know? Why should it be necessary to ponder the question and condition of our humanity. Presumably most of us reading this are, in fact,… Read more: On Being Human…
- Together, not apart.A long conversation with an AI about climate tipping points, ocean heat, and the collapse of the Atlantic conveyor — and an argument about whether individual action means anything without the collective structures to carry it.
- SequaciousAn obscure adjective for lacking independence of thought, and why it might name the real risk of AI: not that we stop thinking, but that we believe we are thinking when we aren’t.