William Hertling

William Hertling: Expose Yourself to a Diversity of Inputs!

by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

This is my second interview with William Hertling. The first time we met was at Greg Bear’s house near Seattle where we did both a 1on1 interview and a fantastic science fiction panel together with our host and Ramez Naam. So I suggest you start by watching those videos if you have not seen them yet. Today, we are going deeper into artificial intelligence and the technological singularity.

William Hertling is the author of award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, The Last Firewall, and The Turing Exception. His plausible scenarios for the technological singularity are emotionally engaging and logically compelling, and I have read all four of his books. So, it was no surprise that, once again, I had a total blast interviewing Herting for my podcast.

During our 70 min conversation with William, we cover his latest book The Turing Exception; a kill-switch for the Internet and other ways to minimize the danger of AI; the impact of reading Our Final Invention; the need for creating AGI/ASI and the democratization of hardware needed to run it; whether it is AI or humanity itself that poses the most significant risk to our existence; science fiction as a social commentary; the importance of ethics; personal development and self-publishing; our chances of surviving the technological singularity…

As always, you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down to watch the video interview in full. To show your support, you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is William Hertling?

William Hertling is the author of the award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, The Last Firewall and The Turing Exception. These near-term science-fiction novels about realistic ways strong AI might emerge have been called “frighteningly plausible,” “tremendous,” and “must read.”

Avogadro Corp won Forewords Review Science Fiction Book of the Year, and A.I. Apocalypse was nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel. The Last Firewall was endorsed by tech luminaries, including Harper Reed (CTO of Obama Campaign), Ben Huh (CEO of Cheezburger), and Brad Feld (Foundry Group).

He’s been influenced by writers such as William Gibson, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, and Walter Jon Williams.

William Hertling was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up a digital native in the early days of bulletin board systems. His first experience with net culture occurred when he wired seven phone lines into the back of his Apple //e to build an online chat system. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Greg Bear, Ramez Naam and William Hertling on the Singularity

by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

This is the concluding sci fi round-table discussion of my Seattle 1-on-1 interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling and Greg Bear. The video was recorded last November and was produced by Richard Sundvall, shot by Ian Sun and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. (Special note of thanks to Agah Bahari who did the interview audio re-mix and basically saved the footage.)

During our 30 minute discussion with Greg Bear, Ramez Naam and William Hertling we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: what is science fiction; the technological singularity and whether it could or would happen; the potential of conflict between humans and AI; the definition of the singularity; emerging AI and evolution; the differences between thinking and computation; whether the singularity is a religion or not…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

The Value of Science Fiction in Understanding the Singularity

by

Many contend that science fiction has no place in the discussion of artificial intelligence and the singularity. In my opinion, that’s not true.

They argue that understanding the impact of artificial intelligence and transhumanism is serious business. When we read the work of MIRI, books like Our Final Invention, or Ray Kurzweil’s writings, we see the stakes are high for both benefits and risks. Differences in opinion cause tensions to run strong between scientists, futurists, and business leaders.

Future word cloud
At first glance, this seriousness suggests the tropes of science fiction could lead to trivialization of the singularity or more disinformation than useful discourse. Indeed, I’ve experienced people in the field of machine intelligence scoffing at the idea of reading science fiction.

 

But I’d like to argue there are good reasons why science fiction adds value to the discussion on the technological singularity.

 

1. Fiction is widely accessible and enables learning without the feeling of being lectured. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement is one of the best selling business books of all time with more than two million books sold and is a staple of MBA courses. Although it’s written in the form of a fictional novel, it does a great job of explaining the concepts behind lean manufacturing and the theory of constraints. The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim is a novel that does the same for the field of IT management, and the just released Uncommon Stock by Eliot Peper teaches startup entrepreneurship. By presenting lessons in the realm of fiction, readers can acquire new ideas during their recreation time. Learning can also happen without provoking the defensive measures some people have when confronted with new information. Numerous studies have shown the human mind is wired to hear and remember stories, making storytelling the most effective mode of persuasion and communication.

 

2. Science fiction invites the exploration of ideas and expands the range of what people see as possible. I often see comments on Avogadro Corp, my novel about the emergence of AI, that it stretches their idea of what’s plausible or requires a suspension of disbelief. I’m somewhat shocked by this reaction, because Avogadro Corp is intended to reflect reality as close as possible. What I’ve gradually come to realize over several years is that I have two sets of readers: those that have a habit of reading science fiction, and those who are reading it perhaps for the first time. The latter group isn’t used to considering ideas in the wide-open-acceptance way that many readers of science fiction are. A frequent consumer of science fiction, for example, isn’t flummoxed when a story takes place on a spaceship. They accept the initial idea, and then quickly move on to explore the implications: What would it mean to live on a spaceship? How would society be impacted? What are the cultural norms on a closed environment? More frequent reading of science fiction encourages this playful exploration of ideas and their impact. This game of “what if” is crucial to the consideration of new ideas and new technology.

 

3. Science fiction makes it easier to understand complex ideas. Because the writer controls the story, they can choose setting, ideas, and characters that enhance the readers ability to understand complex ideas. Charles Stross, for example, explores the themes of economics and finance throughout many of his books. Readers may get a better understanding of the Bitcoin protocol by reading Neptune’s Brood than any non-fiction.

 

4. Science fiction may be imprecise, but so is real life. Critics of science fiction often complain about the many ways that scifi books get real science wrong. But when listening to the Singularity 1 on 1 podcast, I see there are almost as many definitions of singularity as there are people interviewed. Even so, by listening to many podcasts over time, I can gain a richer understanding of the relevant concepts, and identify what is common and what is an outlier. Similarly, any one science fiction work may contain errors, but by reading many fictional works about the singularity, a reader can gain a more nuanced understanding of the topic.

 

5. Familiarity reduces hysteria. Despite the prevalence of fiction about AI talking over the world, for the most part, people aren’t freaking out about it. That’s because there’s also plenty of fiction that depicts the opposite side of the coin (a few examples include Asimov’s robots, Data from Star Trek, and the Star Wars androids). They’ve had time to acclimate to the notion. Compare this to a topic like GMOs, and you can see that what we don’t know scares us. Whether the fear is justified or not, most people react to the idea emotionally rather than logically.

 

If you don’t read science fiction, give it a try. If you do, tell your friends about it. And if you’re a scientist or researcher working in the field, don’t just slam singularity fiction. Instead, give it a fair chance and comment on what the author got right and wrong. Most authors want to get their science right and love getting expert feedback.

 

If you’ve never read singularity fiction, here are a few books I love:

 

  • Accelerando by Charles Stross: Accelerando is the book that changed how I thought about the entire field of science fiction. Stross made it so that any science fiction novel that didn’t consider the technological singularity seemed implausible.
  • The Lifecycle of Software Object by Ted Chiang: The Lifecycle of Software Objects is a wonderful story about how complex AI will grow and learn much the way humans do. I suspect that much of the early-generation strong AI will be like this, and we’ll end up with tech startups whose speciality will be training and educating AI.
  • Computer One by Warwick Collins: In Computer One, Warwick Collins lays out a compelling argument for why it’s likely that AI would try to preemptively wipe out humans. I think it’s an important read in the field of AI.
  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez: Daemon is mind-blowingly good. The basic idea is that a videogame designer dies, leaving his massively multiplayer online RPG running, with its AI set to take certain actions on his death. The AI has the ability to interact with the real world through text messages, emails, and phone calls. Brilliant and scary.
  • Nexus by Ramez Naam: Ramez goes deep into what it means to have connected minds. The focus is less on AI and more on transhumanism.

book on star background.Elements of this image furnished by NASA

When China wondered why their scientists and engineers weren’t as creative as their American counterparts, they set out to study why. Talking to scientists and engineers around the world, they found those with the most imagination and creativity all shared a love of science fiction. The race to create strong AI as well as the race to protect us from possible dangers can both benefit from such creativity and imagination.

 

About the Author:

 

William-Hertling-thumbWilliam Hertling is the award-winning author of Avogadro Corp, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. His science fiction series, set at ten year intervals, explores the emergence and coexistence of artificial intelligence and transhumanism. You can follow him at @hertling

 

Related articles

William Hertling: The Singularity is closer than it appears!

by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

William HertlingWilliam Hertling is a rather recent science fiction discovery of mine and the author of award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. William has written several plausible scenarios for the technological singularity that were so engaging and compelling that, as soon as I finished his first book, I could not help but go ahead and read the next one too. And so I was very happy to get an opportunity and interview Hertling on my podcast.

During our 45 min conversation with William, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as the impact of reading Accelerando and The Singularity is Near; how he was challenged to become a sci-fi author, and outlined the plot of his first book on the proverbial paper-napkin; the extrapolation of current trends in software and hardware as a way of predicting technological progress; the importance of theory of mind for the creating of artificial intelligence; the singularity and whether it is more likely to happen in a hacker garage or a military lab; hard take-off vs soft take-off; whole-brain simulation and the diminishing costs thereof; if an AI apocalypse is a plausible future scenario or not; transhumanism and healthy life-extension…

This is the second out of a series of 3 sci-fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling, and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. It was produced by Richard and Tatyana Sundvall and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. (Special note of thanks to Agah Bahari who did the interview audio re-mix.)

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is William Hertling?

William Hertling is the author of the award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. These near-term science-fiction novels about realistic ways strong AI might emerge have been called “frighteningly plausible,” “tremendous,” “must-read.”

Avogadro Corp won Forewords Review Science Fiction Book of the Year and A.I. Apocalypse was nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel. The Last Firewall was endorsed by tech luminaries including Harper Reed (CTO for Obama Campaign), Ben Huh (CEO Cheezburger), and Brad Feld (Foundry Group).

He’s been influenced by writers such as William Gibson, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, and Walter Jon Williams.

William Hertling was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up a digital native in the early days of bulletin board systems. His first experience with net culture occurred when he wired seven phone lines into the back of his Apple //e to build an online chat system. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Other interviews from the series: