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Comment by moh_maya | Hacker News Reader

If you find the topic of non-human intelligence, esp. octopus intelligence interesting, you may find Adrian Tchaikovsky's children of Ruin series worth your time. The 2nd book, without ruining too much of the story, has octopii as one of the central characters. [1]

Going out further afield, exploring forms of intelligence & cognition that are very different from humans, Peter Watt's blindsight (firefall) series is an idea-filled, dense, very satisfying read. [2]

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40376072-children-of-rui...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight

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I STRONGLY suggest you first read Children of Time and only then Children of Ruin, you'd miss a ton of pieces and some parts of the story wouldn't be clear at all.

I'd really like to hear the feedback from those in AI-complete or cognitive science research about Blindsight and especially Watts' notes [1], and if we could implement "merely" sentient AI with no consciousness, or if sentience backed by human-capacity reasoning and learning somehow lead to sapience. Because Watts makes an effective argument with his copious bibliography that "only" sentience can Accomplish A Hell Of A Lot.

Could a "merely" sentient software-driven but not conscious/self-aware robot be built that washes my dishes / cutlery and puts them away, keeps my permaculture garden tended/weeded, separates recyclables, washes, hang dries when feasible / conventional-dries when not, folds, puts away clothes / towels / fabric products, dusts, vacuums, puts away clutter, etc.?

[1] https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#Notes

> Could a "merely" sentient software-driven but not conscious/self-aware robot be built that washes my dishes / cutlery and puts them away, keeps my permaculture garden tended/weeded, separates recyclables, washes, hang dries when feasible / conventional-dries when not, folds, puts away clothes / towels / fabric products, dusts, vacuums, puts away clutter, etc.?

Probably. It could also probably convincingly portray itself as conscious if set to that task, for versimilitude's sake. Whether it is set to that task will probably depend on whether that seems to be the shortest path out of the uncanny valley.

At which point... I'm not sure there is any difference left worth talking about.

IANACognititive scientist, but:

Yes, I don't think anyone in AI research believes human-style self-awareness is needed for those tasks. Well, putting away clutter might be tricky, just in getting human definitions of "put away". Most of the rest of them are just high-level pattern matching.

I think consciousness is worthwhile for communicating useful thought patterns to your peers. This is consistent with the modern perspective that "consciousness is just stories you tell yourself" and even the Watts perspective that it's inefficient. Those stories about yourself are in fact useful if they make your tribemates more effective, and (as anyone knows who has thought about communication overhead in a large organization) the individual inefficiency is offset by the power to harness a hundred or a million individuals to the same task.

The Children of Ruin series is somewhere between an homage and a rip-off of the "Zones of Thought" series, they're similar quality though in my opinion, I'd read the originals first just 'cause.

It's been a while since I've read Fire Upon the Deep, but while they have similar sci-fi themes, the plot and antagonists are way different.

Read the sequel (if you haven't ;) )

Related recommendation:

Ted Chiang's tiny gem of a novella - "The Great Silence"

Second that. What a beautiful and inspiring story. My favorite of all in Exhalation.

Ha! I just finished reading Children of Time and am reading CoR right now. Humanity eerily reflects the current state of the US in those books.

I like to imagine that the gland in octopuses which causes them to have short lifespans unless surgically removed, was an artificial limiter designed to give terrestrials a chance.

Extremely random factoid, but the world is tiny, so I once ended up in a WoW guild with Adrian, for a time. Cool guy. Horde, of course.

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