Monday, February 28, 2011

Artificial Intelligence

Following last week’s little adventures into the world of cyberspace and artificial intelligence, I thought that, this being a sci-fi blog and all, I would attempt to continue that conversation, first with a quick overview of AI as a fictional device and how it could relate to Christianity.

Artificial intelligence in sf started out as the pinnacle of transhuman evolution, notably in Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question, where the final evolution of the man-made multivac AIs ultimately becomes God – a concept which surely requires more attention at a later date.

On a somewhat smaller scale, computers are generally intended to be useful; in sf a good artificial intelligence can conveniently remove the problem of human error in, say, navigating a large space vessel (the Nostromo from Alien, or any number of ships in the Culture novels of Iain M Banks).

However, as the giant supercomputers of 50s and 60s pulp sf gave way to networks of far smaller machines, the combined processing power available led to the idea of such a network achieving consciousness (Skynet, anyone?) and leading a cybernetic revolt, such as led to the slavery of humankind in the world of The Matrix.

Another angle on artificial intelligence, and one which has interesting potential for Christian fiction, is the idea of downloading a human mind into a computer, usually for the purpose of prolonging ‘life’ indefinitely. There are a few alternative directions this could go off in, some of which have already been tackled from a Christian perspective; The Personifid Project allows for human minds to be uploaded into artificial bodies, less prone to the common cold and so on. Alternatively the prospect of a digital afterlife might allow for similar discussion around what happens to the soul of a digitised person, and is explored in Greg Egan’s Permutation City. Expose your digitised minds to a computer virus, on the other hand…

That is far from a comprehensive outline of Artificial Intelligence in fiction, but it’s a few of the ways it has featured, and I’ll come back to some of them and try and find some way of using them in Christian Fiction in future posts.

In the meantime, feel free to chip in with any questions, comments, suggested reading, or anything else you care to add. Especially if you’re a sentient computer program.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Book Review: The God Hater by Bill Myers

In conjunction with the Christian SciFi and Fantasy Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. And since they bothered to send it half way across the world, it seems only fair that I hold up my end of the bargain, which is to review the thing.

OK, I have to start with this: I wouldn’t have bought The God Hater. Not because it’s bad, but because if I had seen it in a bookshop (I know, but we’re reviewing sci-fi here, suspend your disbelief) there is nothing to tell me I would like it. The vague title and the bloke wandering along a cobbled street give no clues to the sub-cyberpunk action, and there’s no blurb to hint at it, just a bunch of writers saying how great it is. And, assuming I did, for a dare or something, pick the book up, I’d have to get about five chapters in before I figured out it was going to have the whole AI thing going on.

Luckily, however, we have a blog tour, which means that somebody told me what the book was about. Which is, to recap: the story of grouchy atheist Professor Nicholas Mackenzie, who is seconded by his techno-guru brother to provide the philosophical grounding for his huge AI computer program. Against all his better judgement, he does this by getting uploaded in virtual form into the AI computer world to tell its inhabitants about ‘Programmer’.

I’m trying really hard here not to go ‘well I would have done this differently….’ But in fact there were a few things I liked about Myers’ treatment of the whole AI Gospel idea – giving Nicholas a reason to genuinely care about the little computer people, the way strict legalism can distract from the spirit of the law, and Programmer’s virtual disciples, a miscellaneous bunch of prostitutes, thieves and other outcasts I could have lived with getting to know a little more. The crucifixion analogue (oops, was that a spoiler?) was set up nicely from the beginning, although some of its side-effects didn’t make that much sense to me in terms of either the story or the logic of the virtual world. Now, Myers admits that the science (and indeed the theology) of the story may not be 100% accurate, but for me, a few more clues about the internal workings of this world might have made for a more satisfying read.

I seem to say this about a lot of Christian novels, but the story keeps you going at a pretty quick pace, and certainly in this case the action in either the real world or cyberspace doesn’t let up for long. Unfortunately I think characterisation suffers a bit as a result of this, but maybe that’s ok. The God Hater is an ‘idea’ story, and I know from reinventing the Old Testament that a story like this has to get to certain points, so you can’t let characters run away with themselves as much as in a character-led story. Nicholas, in particular, starts out looking like he was just pulled out of a family size bag of Richard Dawkins, but as he gets pulled into his brother’s schemes he gets fleshed out and is real enough to help the idea reach a satisfying conclusion.

There was some good stuff going on in the real world too - a lot of it was fairly unbelievable, but maybe that made the few moments of realistic human interaction on Nicholas’ real life journey more satisfying. His story is, ultimately, a nice parallel to what virtual Nick (who for some reason managed to bypass the bitterness subroutine) is doing in the computer world. Making the protagonist a militant atheist was a good move, not least because not many Christian stories would have done so, but his job as a philosophy professor would have given him enough familiarity with the Bible to go about re-enacting it inside a giant computer game. Even given that assumption, some of the almost verbatim re-enactments of Biblical events stretched credibility a little, especially where they were instigated by the computer people.

In terms of theme and Christian content, well, most of us are at least vaguely familiar with computer games like The Sims these days, and in light of that the story does manage to humanise God's perspective on the Incarnation, as far as that is remotely possible. The Biblical parallel is pretty obvious once the cyber-story kicks in, but the predictable nature of that thread is off-set by some nice twists in the real world.

So is it any good? Well, if, like me, you’ve been reading the latest Iain M Banks or some similarly weighty sci-fi tome, the writing and depth of story is going to fall somewhat short of what you’ve been used to. On the other hand, you won’t be reading it for anything like as long, so it doesn’t really matter. If you like a quick, accessible read, that sheds a little light on the nature of God, then this one might be just what you’re after.


Find out more at thegodhater.com, facebook the author, or visit these blogs:

Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Melissa Carswell Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour Janey DeMeo April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

In honour of this week's featured book on the CSFF Blog Tour, I've gone to the trouble of creating a sentient music selection program, complete with genre recognition subroutines, at least 17 algorithms for defining the 'best' tunes based on various factors (such as tediousness of intro, cheesiness of lyrics and difficulty of air-guitar accompaniment), and filters for relevance and repetition, and then hacking into SETI@home in order to generate the massive processing power required to bring you this, the all time Virtual Top Ten Songs:

10. QFX: Virtual Reality
This was always going to be a list fairly heavy on electronic music, so we'll kick off proceedings with some good old 90s rave. Warning: This song contains some strobe lighting.

9. Toyah: Computer
New wave awesomeness with weirdly relevant lyrics. Plus, how much of a genius do you need to be to name an album Sheep Farming in Barnet?

8. Jean Michel Jarre: Computer Weekend
A jolly little tune from everybody's favourite French electro pioneer.

7. Kraftwerk: Computer World
Naturally, we couldn't have a computer-themed Top Ten without those happy chaps from Düsseldorf.

6. Twilight: Computer Virus
Our odyssey through electronica takes a turn for the ambient here.

5. Operation Ivy: Artificial Life
And a change of pace for some late 80s ska-punk.

4. Ides of Space: Computer World
No, not a Kraftwerk cover - in fact, this mellow indie rock track all the way from Australia is about as far from Kraftwerk as you could get with the same title.

3. Synergy: Artificial Intelligence (Friday, January 25, 1980)
We're into the properly good stuff here, Eno-esque ambient electronica, apparently all written by a computer programme. All sounds a bit science-fiction, no?

2. Sonic Youth: Computer Age
Because every Top Ten needs a weird cover version - this is an alt rock version of a Neil Young song.

1. 35007: Artificial Intelligence
They're Dutch, and their name is Loose in calculator language. And this track is six minutes of instrumental prog-rock in the Porcupine Tree style. Which, for the record, is a good thing.

And of course, for those lucky enough to be reading this in the Spotify-enabled world, here's the link.

Oh yes, the feature book, by the way, is The God Hater by Bill Myers, which, if you've visited elsewhere on the tour you will know, is at least partly about artificial intelligence, virtual worlds and other such techy goodness. You can probably find out about it at some of these blogs:

Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Melissa Carswell Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour Janey DeMeo April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

Monday, February 21, 2011

CSFF Blog Tour: The God Hater by Bill Myers

We don't really have Bill Myers in the UK. I thought he was the bloke from Austin Powers until Professor Google put me straight.

A quick look at thegodhater.com told me this about the book we will be featuring on the tour this month:
A cranky, atheist philosophy professor loves to shred incoming freshmen of their faith. He is chosen by a group of scientists to create a philosophy for a computer-generated world exactly like ours.
Much to his frustration every model introduced from Darwinism, to Existentialism, to Eastern beliefs fails. The only way to preserve the computer world is to introduce laws from outside their system through a Law Giver. Of course this goes against everything he believes and he hates it. But even this doesn't completely work because the citizens of that world become legalists and completely miss the spirit behind the Law.
The only way to save them is to create a computer character like himself to personally explain it. He does. So now there are two of him—the one in our world and the one in the computer world. (Sound familiar?)
Unfortunately, a rival has introduced a virus into the computer world. Things grow worse until the professor in that computer world sees the only way to save his world is to personally absorb the virus and the penalty for breaking the Law. Of course it's clear to all, including our real world professor, that this act of selfless love has become a complete reenactment of the Gospel. It is the only possible choice to save the computer world and, as he finally understands, our own.
So, we have a sort of cyberpunk-esque allegory, with the nebulous concept of sin represented by a computer virus... which, by a curious coincidence, is the exact plot of my first novel, penned (literally!) some time in the mid-90s when I first thought about writing fiction. Seriously. That bit about 'a rival has introduced a virus into the computer world'? I did that. Look, you can see it on my WIPlist - I had thought about revisiting it when I was a better writer, but couldn't make the thing stand up properly in a post-Matrix world.

So the question is, has Bill Myers done a better job of it than I did? Well, given that The God Hater is his umpteenth published novel, as opposed to his first left-in-a-desk-drawer novel, I would certainly hope so. In a dramatic break with tradition, I have actually read this book (thanks to the Tour organisers and Howard Books) and will post a proper review on Wednesday.

Interestingly, the idea I once dismissed as cheesy and derivative, that bloke from Left Behind described as the best idea Myers ever had. Make of that what you will: maybe Jerry Jenkins hasn't read that many really good 'idea' stories, or maybe Bill Myers' other ideas really were pants. Maybe Bill and Jerry* will agree that, in fact, this just means that I am a creative genius. If that were the case, I couldn't possibly argue, of course. Especially not with the man who gave us Shrek.

So, now you've read my rant, why not see how many of these bloggers have their own versions of Bill Myers' stories gathering dust a drawer somewhere:

Noah Arsenault Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith James Somers Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

*don't they have an ice-cream business on the side?