Blog Post – Toby Weston

New Talk – AI FOoM

I was recently asked to give a talk for the DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION & INNOVATION IN BFSI SUMMIT 2024 in Vienna.

I haven’t done one of these things since Covid, so it was useful to update my priors with regard to the future…
…which is bearing down on us like some laser-eyed, fusion-powered Behemoth!

In this talk, I focus on how science fiction can prepare us for AI FOoM! (Fast Onset of Machine intelligence). A scenario that a minority of AI researchers are concerned about, but which has non-trivial consequences for our species.

E/ACC

I’m going to expand this into an essay when I get the time:

I am kind of torn:
Yes e/acc (singularity worshipers) might destroy the world in eleven interesting ways before lunchtime…

– but –

crows, apes, etc, are conscious, will never go foom (a colloquial term for AI hard takeoff), and there’s thousands of planets full analogous sentient agents to keep the spark of consciousness burning if we do disappear up our own brainstems…

– soo – (I guess)

push the button! Turn the page!
Light the blue touchpaper and stand back!

Also…

The singularity is coming whether we like it or not, so for all you/us neo-Luddites out there, maybe it’s time to accept that you/we can’t beat em, so you/we might as well join them.

(as I said, I’m torn)

Edit:
Hmmm… seems like he might be the antichrist after all. (see:THE SINGULARITY IS UPON US!)

Hwwara Hall of Records

40K BCE, Oldest Cave Art at the Hwarra Hall of Records

Sometimes, when I am writing, I know the reader would probably appreciate some visual aid, but I haven’t clarified everything in my mind. I use Photoshop to come up with ideas which might end up as illustrations in the book. But if they don’t, they at least assist me visualising precisely what is happening and, ideally, improve my descriptions.

Concept art for my current work in progress:

Anthropocene, a Hard SciFi, Paleo-Punk, Conspiracy Theory, Murder Mystery, Who Dunnit…