Now I'm curious, where did Piranesi come up for you? Is it being talked about in non-genre places, or does your current freelancing expose you to SFF things? (since I think you don't typically read SFF, right?)
Not SFF for sure. Most likely New Yorker book review. Or one of the interview podcasts. Or another article found through FB. I think it was treated more like literature than SFF.
(Yes, I don't typically read SFF. And so far freelancing/PE work has not exposed me to a single Tor/Forge novel. I wonder if they restructured and have separate editors now. And have specific freelancers working too. If I get one, I'll def mention it in LJ.)
I think it was treated more like literature than SFF.
I could see that working for this book (though I definitely read it as a fantasy, and I think it's intended to be read as one...) I did see some readers mentioning that they were reading the House and the rest of it metaphorically, assuming the main character really had had some kind of breakdown and this was what he was imagining. But at the end of the book there's a part where he talks about that being what his parents think, and I think that's intended to signal that that's not what actually happened. But people seem happy enough reading it like that, so more power to them, I suppose...
And so far freelancing/PE work has not exposed me to a single Tor/Forge novel
Aww! I would definitely be curious to know if it does in the future :)
We use AI at work for some things to do with fruit, and it's reeeaaally difficult not to train it to identify what day (with the subtle-but-common-to-a-set differences in lighting) the photo was taken on.
Heh! That's really interesting, and consistent with the stuff like the "ruler detector" in this book.
A couple of years ago there was a work conference during which we got a fascinating talk on, basically, how AIs were going to take everybody's jobs (in our engineering and supply chain organization) and it was a good thing, because otherwise there was not going to be enough people to do the necessary work. After seeing some of the AI-assisted data analysis stuff that's started making its way into our systems, and especially after reading this book, I doubt that's actually going to happen in any kind of dramatic fashion before it's time for me to retire, but it's really interesting to be aware of the pitfalls of the technology (as well as the things it can actually do).
AIs can play video games "with a terrifying level of aggression and precision", but are VERY BAD at longer-term strategy
Ayeee, AIs are terrifying in video games that center on short burst interactions- I think Dota 2 was the one where it beat out a human team? It had to be fed some insane amount of data (4k years of gameplay vs itself?) but I think once you gave it something like Starcraft, the AI failed badly. Prob cause there's no clear optimal path, and like they said, a lot of long term planning you have to adjust on the fly?
the AI will get stuck in local extrema before finding the globabl one. So there are more complex methods that force it to go explore more of the search space.
Ah yes, the bane of my entire field. I guess it's some solidarity that AIs get to suffer the same as me XD
AIs are also really good at discovering and exploiting shortcuts and glitches in the simulation to cheat their way throughSo there was a funny/interesting instance a little bit ago (2019? I'll have to dig for it cause it was interesting to
( ... )
I think Dota 2 was the one where it beat out a human team?
Yeah, I think that was the one mentioned in the book, too, and it was something crazy like that in terms of years of practice against itself -- maybe hundreds of years rather than thousands, but definitely longer than a human lifetime XD
where a team thought they got their AI to go from satellite maps to street maps and vice versa. But it turned out the AI was being told to remake an 'accurate' map, it'd code the image as color variations in the image. Which no human could probably see
Yes! There was a reference to that incident as well, in the book, in the "lazy cheater AIs" chapter. It's another great example of "wow, that's a really simple solution to... totally not the problem we want you to solve" XD
Ah yes, the bane of my entire field. I guess it's some solidarity that AIs get to suffer the same as me XD
Hehe, yeah, not wanting to search for global extrema felt really relatable! (In general the book does a really nice job of, well, not humanizing AI, since that's
( ... )
It's another great example of "wow, that's a really simple solution to... totally not the problem we want you to solve" XD
It's weird cause a lot of the networks get such a huge degree of freedom, they'll just look at a problem and go 'hmmm, no rules??? No rules?! GO!' XD Which goes to show computers do exactly what they're told- nothing else, and nothing more.
The neural networks described do feel like characters, even though the book is careful to show they're not, if that makes any sense
Yeah, I guess de-mystifying them by 'characterizing' them as quirky things like Office Assistant? Cause normal pop culture has AI as these complex, alien black box behemoths, which...they're not? Like we're prob centuries away from 'sentient' AI, but we certainly have quirky weird AI.
those circumstances would know all the things the book is referencing, and that part's true, but I'm not reading it as a close third POV, I'm just reading it as a 21st century voice narrating the story and only letting us see one character's thoughts, and that's
( ... )
I'm glad that you enjoyed Piranesi (and agreed with the advice to go in knowing nothing)! It definitely is an odd book. I loved the vividness and dreamlike nature of the house, but I did feel that the book was exactly the length it should be, so I know what you mean about it being a capsule
( ... )
(and agreed with the advice to go in knowing nothing
Totally! Thank you for making that suggestion -- it definitely made for the proper reading experience for the book. And I'm pleased to see that we basically agree on everything about Piranesi :) (I was also kind of disappointed when he decided to leave, and cheered up when I saw that he would still go to the House at will and hadn't ruled out coming back permanently at some point).
I have one of those changeable letter board things and I put “Bro, Fate can fuck you up” on it.
Truly a motto for 2020 XD
but I can’t imagine it would be anything near as much fun as this one. Yeah, I think it would be hard to go from this translation to a traditional one! I did enjoy whatever translation we read at college (which I'm too lazy to go and look up now), but this was definitely more vivid and accessible
( ... )
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Now I'm curious, where did Piranesi come up for you? Is it being talked about in non-genre places, or does your current freelancing expose you to SFF things? (since I think you don't typically read SFF, right?)
Reply
(Yes, I don't typically read SFF. And so far freelancing/PE work has not exposed me to a single Tor/Forge novel. I wonder if they restructured and have separate editors now. And have specific freelancers working too. If I get one, I'll def mention it in LJ.)
Reply
I could see that working for this book (though I definitely read it as a fantasy, and I think it's intended to be read as one...) I did see some readers mentioning that they were reading the House and the rest of it metaphorically, assuming the main character really had had some kind of breakdown and this was what he was imagining. But at the end of the book there's a part where he talks about that being what his parents think, and I think that's intended to signal that that's not what actually happened. But people seem happy enough reading it like that, so more power to them, I suppose...
And so far freelancing/PE work has not exposed me to a single Tor/Forge novel
Aww! I would definitely be curious to know if it does in the future :)
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A couple of years ago there was a work conference during which we got a fascinating talk on, basically, how AIs were going to take everybody's jobs (in our engineering and supply chain organization) and it was a good thing, because otherwise there was not going to be enough people to do the necessary work. After seeing some of the AI-assisted data analysis stuff that's started making its way into our systems, and especially after reading this book, I doubt that's actually going to happen in any kind of dramatic fashion before it's time for me to retire, but it's really interesting to be aware of the pitfalls of the technology (as well as the things it can actually do).
Reply
Ayeee, AIs are terrifying in video games that center on short burst interactions- I think Dota 2 was the one where it beat out a human team? It had to be fed some insane amount of data (4k years of gameplay vs itself?) but I think once you gave it something like Starcraft, the AI failed badly. Prob cause there's no clear optimal path, and like they said, a lot of long term planning you have to adjust on the fly?
the AI will get stuck in local extrema before finding the globabl one. So there are more complex methods that force it to go explore more of the search space.
Ah yes, the bane of my entire field. I guess it's some solidarity that AIs get to suffer the same as me XD
AIs are also really good at discovering and exploiting shortcuts and glitches in the simulation to cheat their way throughSo there was a funny/interesting instance a little bit ago (2019? I'll have to dig for it cause it was interesting to ( ... )
Reply
Yeah, I think that was the one mentioned in the book, too, and it was something crazy like that in terms of years of practice against itself -- maybe hundreds of years rather than thousands, but definitely longer than a human lifetime XD
where a team thought they got their AI to go from satellite maps to street maps and vice versa. But it turned out the AI was being told to remake an 'accurate' map, it'd code the image as color variations in the image. Which no human could probably see
Yes! There was a reference to that incident as well, in the book, in the "lazy cheater AIs" chapter. It's another great example of "wow, that's a really simple solution to... totally not the problem we want you to solve" XD
Ah yes, the bane of my entire field. I guess it's some solidarity that AIs get to suffer the same as me XD
Hehe, yeah, not wanting to search for global extrema felt really relatable! (In general the book does a really nice job of, well, not humanizing AI, since that's ( ... )
Reply
It's weird cause a lot of the networks get such a huge degree of freedom, they'll just look at a problem and go 'hmmm, no rules??? No rules?! GO!' XD Which goes to show computers do exactly what they're told- nothing else, and nothing more.
The neural networks described do feel like characters, even though the book is careful to show they're not, if that makes any sense
Yeah, I guess de-mystifying them by 'characterizing' them as quirky things like Office Assistant? Cause normal pop culture has AI as these complex, alien black box behemoths, which...they're not? Like we're prob centuries away from 'sentient' AI, but we certainly have quirky weird AI.
those circumstances would know all the things the book is referencing, and that part's true, but I'm not reading it as a close third POV, I'm just reading it as a 21st century voice narrating the story and only letting us see one character's thoughts, and that's ( ... )
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Totally! Thank you for making that suggestion -- it definitely made for the proper reading experience for the book. And I'm pleased to see that we basically agree on everything about Piranesi :) (I was also kind of disappointed when he decided to leave, and cheered up when I saw that he would still go to the House at will and hadn't ruled out coming back permanently at some point).
I have one of those changeable letter board things and I put “Bro, Fate can fuck you up” on it.
Truly a motto for 2020 XD
but I can’t imagine it would be anything near as much fun as this one. Yeah, I think it would be hard to go from this translation to a traditional one! I did enjoy whatever translation we read at college (which I'm too lazy to go and look up now), but this was definitely more vivid and accessible ( ... )
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