Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > 9) None of the humans attempted to download their personalities and
> > > knowledge into a robot (seeing as how some robots survived?)
> >
> > The ability to build a robot doesn't imply the ability to extract
> > intact human personalities from human brains.
>
>No, but the sophistication of the robots they built, combined with the
>fact that it could have been hundreds of years before the humans were
>wiped out, suggests that something could be done.
This is hardly an isolated fault. You could as easily ask, "why didn't they
have widespread nanotech?", "why were the humans not augmented
superbeings?", or "why was everything taking place in the physical world
rather than a virtual world?" about this or any science fiction story.
An SF story usually makes one or two assumptions about the progress of
technology and keeps everything else the same. In Star Trek, they have warp
drive but no consciousness-uploading and few intelligent robots. In A.I.
they had robots but no uploading. In Egan's novels they have uploading but
no warp drive.
Many of us on this list think uploading is inevitable; thus, any SF
portrayal that shows a significantly advanced technology but doesn't include
uploading as a vital aspect of the fictional world is unrealistic. However,
that damns most SF so you have to just let it go, or you can't enjoy
anything. Contrariwise, since I think FTL travel is impossible I have to
either damn every SF world that shows FTL or just take it as an axiom.
Consciousness uploading wasn't one of A.I.'s "future technology axioms";
that's not a crucial flaw for me, just a minor disappointment.
Joshua
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