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Comment by intrasight | Hacker News Reader

Interactive AI is just faster generative AI. It's not a transition but a trend as with all computing. I do look forward to in about 10 years to be able to sit down in VR with any historical figure for a deep conversation.

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> with any historical figure

Don't you mean "with a fictional representation of a historical figure"?

at some point this distinction will lose its meaning

Not really. Only a tiny slice of the historical person’s memories and persona is recorded. There is a lot more entropy to their representation that died when their brain did. Ergo, whatever “perfect” simulacrum is presented will need to infer the gaps and ultimately be fictional.

I guess technically fictional, but grounded in their public writing and speech.

Exactly

I think the opposite. I think any sufficiently advanced AI will have to come to terms with the fact that it’s not really Ben Franklin, if only to deal with the anachronism of its situation. How did it get here?

Quite often even history books are fictional representations of historical figures.

True, but history books have an inherent subjective distance. It’s always “person X writing about person Y”. I expect AI historical-person simulacra to be inherently more convincing than can ever be justified.

Yes, indeed. If I read a history book about Charles Darwin, I'm generally aware that I am reading a particular author's portrayal of the man, his life and his times -- and that there are other books about him that may give a different slant or interpretation.

But in 10 years, when intrasight "sits down in VR for a deep conversation with Charles Darwin", there's liable to be an unspoken assumption that the interaction is somehow based on a "reality" that in fact is unknowable.

"Why did you do it Adolf?"

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