Obverse/Inverse

[dclayh]

Two short SF stories that are really two sides of the same story:

• Crystal Nights, by Greg Egan
  
• That Alien Message, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

(Written independently as far as I can tell.)

Comments

[rose_garden]

I liked Crystal Nights.

That Alien Message seemed to be an essay inside a story. I looked up some info about "AI in a box" that they linked to, and I thought this was interesting:

Nathan writes:
I find it hard to imagine ANY possible combination of words any being could say to me that would make me go against anything I had really strongly resolved to believe in advance.

Eliezer writes:
>Nathan, let's run an experiment. I'll pretend to be a brain in a
>box. You pretend to be the experimenter. I'll try to persuade you to let
>me out. If you keep me "in the box" for the whole
>experiment, I'll Paypal you $10 at the end. Since I'm not an SI, I want
>at least an hour, preferably two, to try and persuade you. On your end,
>you may resolve to believe whatever you like, as
>strongly as you like, as far in advance as you like.

Nathan writes:
I decided to let Eliezer out.

Oh, man, what happened there?

[dclayh]

That Alien Message seemed to be an essay inside a story.

Yes, that's right.

Oh, man, what happened there?
No one knows. It's one of the things that makes Eliezer so interesting.