as i mentioned in my previous video verner vengey is one of the foremost thinkers about the future of artificial intelligence and the potential for a technological singularity to occur in the coming decades he's a science fiction writer who has published only 24 short stories and novellas and eight novels over a span of nearly 50 years nevertheless he's had a profound impact on a wide range of authors including william gibson charles strauss neil stephenson and dan simmons many of benji's works are brilliant among them are some of my all-time favorites in the science fiction genre and he's been recognized with numerous awards including seven hugo nominations and five wins in this video i discuss his later works from the 1980s onward the ones that really cemented his legacy as a writer and a thinker welcome to the library ladder between 1984 and 1986 vengeance published two loosely connected novels and a novella known collectively as his across real-time series the first volume the 1984 novel the peace war represented another significant step forward for him as a writer it was a finalist for the hugo award that year losing to gibson's neuromancer and it showed the steady maturation of his writing style to complement the sophistication of his ideas the peace war begins in the near future of the 1990s when government scientists working on peaceful energy research discovered the ability to create spherical force fields they nicknamed bubbles the bubbles are completely impenetrable stasis fields that trap anything inside them in a kind of suspended animation essentially causing time to stand still inside a bottle this amazing discovery is quickly co-opted though by unscrupulous and ambitious bureaucrats and politicos who perceive its potential value as a first strike military weapon they then act on that potential and execute a worldwide coup launching a war to create a single global government by entombing in bubbles hostile government facilities and military weapons systems around the world they quickly succeed in bobbling most of their global rivals but not before a few nuclear weapons are detonated and a retaliatory germ warfare pandemic is inflicted on the world resulting in massive global depopulation in the breakdown of most societal structures once the proverbial dust has settled the bobblers now calling themselves the peace authority have achieved effective control of the entire world that might sound like the plot of an entire novel but in fact it's just the setup established obliquely in the books prologue most of the novel takes place about 50 years later the peace authority still exerts its iron grip on the world but cracks are starting to show fearing the development of technologies that could threaten its hegemony such as biological warfare agents or rival bobbling devices the peace authority has outlawed many forms of scientific and technological inquiry however without the ability to innovate technologically economic systems have stagnated and in many places outside the few remaining cities they've regressed to barter arrangements and a strong emphasis on local self-sufficiency there are still vestiges though of the robust scientific community that existed five decades earlier those surviving scientists and engineers known colloquially as tinkers are forced to work in secret hiding their efforts from the peace authority and collaborating furtively and with a paranoid fear of discovery one of the foremost tinkers is paul holder the original inventor of the bobbler technology who escaped from the peace authority when he first discovered its plans to use it for military conquest he's an old man now living under an assumed name deep in the mountains of southern california but he's been busy and has managed to create a functional version of his original bobbler he's also discovered something the peace authority doesn't realize bobbles aren't permanent the stasis fields created by bobbles degrade over time and eventually disappear leaving the contents of the bobble unharmed and in the exact condition they were in when first bobbled in essence the baubles act like time machines that transport their contents into the future and from the perspective of someone bobbled it's an instantaneous voyage this becomes relevant when some of the original baubles created by the peace authority and its initial coup begin opening and the tankers discover how to calibrate the bobbling process to control how far into the future a bubble will last after raising significant questions about whether peace can be imposed through the threat of force and whether autocratic power stifles innovation and economic vitality the book shifts gears and becomes a high-stakes adventure story in which the tinkers plan and launch a covert attack on the piecers that's full of intrigue deception and technological ingenuity while the piecers themselves mount a full-scale effort to eradicate huller and the rest of the tankers it's a fun quick read and another of vinji's creative thought experiments this time about the potential applications and consequences of bobble technology it isn't a book you read for nuanced and satisfying character arcs instead it's a book about ideas and very intriguing ones at that 1985's the ungoverned is a novella contained in vengeance 2001 short story collection as well as in his earlier collection true names and other dangers it serves as a limited bridge connecting the two novels that bookend fingers across real time sequence i can't say too much about the plot without spoiling the events in the peace war so let me just say that it occurs after the peace war and outside the realm of the control of the peace authority it imagines a war between the republic of new mexico and the free state of kansas the ungoverned in the story's title it poses the question of whether a state that claims to be the last remaining human democracy but isn't diverse to imposing its will on its neighbors can coexist peacefully alongside freedom-loving kansans who have a strong independence streak and deeply rooted distrust for governments of any kind you see kansas has blended anarchy with capitalism in its approach to governance relying on private contractors and entrepreneurs to perform functions previously provided by government including police defense and the adjudication of disputes while new mexico is answering the siren call of manifest destiny an imminent domain in its desire to obtain more habitable living space for its population and kansas looks ripe for colonization by new mexico how the two states resolve their differences ends up having a profound influence on the future of humanity as described in the final book marooned in real time marooned in real time broadens the time scale and provides additional historical context for the first two stories in the sequence the development of bobble technology and the subsequent events in the peace war have interrupted an impending singularity by slowing human advancement by more than a century however by the time the 22nd century arrives technological progress has resumed its rapid pace computing nano manufacturing and bobbling technologies have advanced to the point that wealthy individuals and families can create their own private retreats and bobble themselves and their fortified compounds into the future some on sightseeing excursions some in anticipation of multiplying their fortunes through the magic of compound interest and some in the authoritarian hope of finding a future world that's easier to control than the current one imagine their surprise when bobble travelers emerge in the 23rd century to discover all of humanity gone from the earth vanished without a trace or explanation was it the result of a singularity event or did a catastrophe of some kind occur it's not clear the result though is that the fate of all humankind now rests in the hands of a few hundred individuals who happen to be bobbled at the time of the disappearance if humanity is to survive as a species everyone in those baubles will be needed the problem is that some of the larger bobbles containing the bulk of the survivors aren't expected to open for millions of years thus a plan is needed to track and monitor the bottles across eons and to recruit the people inside them to the cause of saving humankind when they emerge unfortunately not everyone agrees with that goal marooned in real time takes place tens of millions of years in the future when most of the bobbled remnants of humanity have been gathered and heated debates are occurring among the survivors about the best path forward complicating matters is the enormous disparity in technological advancement and resources among the formerly bobbled some of them were bobbled in the 21st century during the events of the peace war some were bubbled decades later during a golden age of technological development and still others the most advanced of them were bubbled shortly before the possible singularity event there's even one survivor who might not even be human anymore rivalries grudges and political feuds are still raw and fresh in people's minds despite being millions of years removed from the events they remember because of how bobbling creates the perception of instantaneous time travel at the center of the plot is a murder someone has intentionally marooned in the past the chief architect of the plan to save humanity leaving her to die all alone and potentially sabotaging any chances for the human race's survival rescuing her is impossible because bobbles can only transport their contents into the future they can't travel back to the past enter will bryerson a former kansas police officer who was a central character in the novella the ungoverned bryerson who has unexpectedly found himself in the distant future after being bobbled against his will during an insurance fraud investigation in the 21st century is asked to help solve the murder the story takes on many of the trappings of a classic agatha christie manor house mystery with a bevy of potential suspects together in one location an intrepid detective interviewing each suspect in turn to gather evidence and a final confrontation with the assembled suspects to unmask the culprit i loved the concept of this book benji thinks about time travel and about future biological geological and technological evolution in very creative ways unfortunately most of the characters are still pretty two-dimensional although i quite liked his handling of the character who might or might not be human as well as his recounting of the contents of journals written by the character who's marooned in the past as she survived for several decades alone together all three stories in the across real-time sequence make a compelling eon-spanning narrative of a potential history of humanity it's easy to see why both the peace war and marooned in real time were finalists for the hugo award his next novel a fire upon the deep published in 1992 is the first volume in his zones of thought trilogy and it's a masterpiece after finishing his across real-time sequence vengeance struggled with how to write about the aftermath of a singularity when by definition it'll surpass our abilities to understand it and to describe it in the across real-time stories he sidesteps the issue either by having the singularity delayed by a catastrophe such as the peace war or by having members of humanity skip over the singularity event using bobble time travel leaving the event itself a mystery but vinji wanted a different way of engaging with the concept of a singularity in his stories that didn't seem so much like a dodge he found it by reframing technological progress in terms of space rather than time instead of mapping singularities at specific points in time he instead chose to define them as a function of three-dimensional space on a galactic scale he's described it as a 90 degree pivot of sorts to think about the concept sideways where different levels of intelligence and technological advancement are possible in parallel depending on one's location in space at the heart of the galaxy a region known as the unthinking depths life is incapable of developing beyond a lower order intelligence in the slow zone where earth is located a wider range of intelligence is possible encompassing that of normal humans while technology is limited by newtonian and einsteinian physics superhuman intelligence and technology such as antigravity and faster than light travel become possible only upon crossing the boundary that separates the slow zone from the beyond and the outermost region of the galaxy is the transcend where the beings and technologies that inhabit it are so advanced and unknowable is to be indistinguishable from magic within each zone the limits of achievable intelligence are determined by one's proximity to the neighboring zones as one approaches an outer boundary biological and artificial intelligences function more effectively while the reverse occurs upon nearing an inner boundary in essence the boundary lines are the equivalent of singularity events that can uplift or downgrade the beings and technologies that cross them depending on the direction of travel making things even more interesting the boundaries can change over time shifting inward or outward and causing planetary systems near a boundary to experience a sudden transcendence to a higher order of intelligence or a corresponding degradation depending on which side of the boundary they end up on and that's the conceptual backdrop of the zones of thought trilogy i first ran a fire up on the deep nearly 30 years ago shortly after encountering dan simmons hyperion cantos for the first time reading them almost back to back was an incredible one-two punch and they remain two of my favorite science fiction books of all time the plot of a fire upon the deep is difficult to summarize briefly a group of human scientists exploring an abandoned planet in the lower part of the transcend zone unwittingly awaken a malignant and powerful artificial intelligence that begins an assault on the rest of the galaxy two of the scientists a husband and wife along with their two children managed to flee the planet and head to the comparative safety of the inner zones of the galaxy where they hope the rampaging ai now known as the blight will have diminished capabilities the family also takes with it an artifact from the planet that they believe might hold the key to stopping the blight unfortunately the family's ship is damaged and is forced to land on an unexplored planet in the lower depths of the slow zone at this point still very early in the novel the narrative divides with half the remaining story focused on the family's survival efforts on a perilous planet while awaiting rescue and the other half focused on the motley crew of a commercial cargo vessel that intercepts the family's sos signal and launches an attempt to rescue them and retrieve the artifact that might put an end to the blight and in hot pursuit are multiple armadas of warships intent on destroying all of them either as threats to the blight or as agents of it that plot summary truly doesn't do justice to how creative and captivating this book is vinji finally achieves a degree of depth and complexity to his human characters that complements the breathtaking inventiveness of the ideas embedded in his stories they aren't perfectly realized characters but they're more than good enough because the real stars of the book are the non-human characters on the planet that comes to be known as tinesworld the children of the shipwrecked family are captured by two rival factions of an alien species known as tines the tines are vaguely doglike creatures that possess a unique biology and social structure their intellects and individual identities have a hive mind quality to them using ultrasonics individual tines link their minds with others in small groups to form functional beings with coherent personalities it's necessary for them because solitary tines lack the intelligence to do much of anything it takes at least three or four times linked together to create a stable personality with sufficient intellect to approach human-level intelligence the tides are fascinating and with them vengeance creates one of the most engaging depictions of an alien species i've ever encountered in science fiction but that's not all the motley crew of the rescue ship includes a pair of scrode riders an alien species resembling potted plants that are sentient and have limited language capabilities enhanced with the aid of the computerized carts they ride on the scrota riders are a mated pair and their banter with each other and with other members of the crew is delightfully charming and far less charming but very intriguing is crew member pham nguyen an enigmatic figure with a fractured personality memories that shouldn't be possible and the skill set that makes him indispensable and it's not entirely clear whether he's even human in hindsight the ambiguously human character from the earlier novel marooned in real time seems like a kind of practice run for pham nguyen in this book in closing i think a fire up on the deep is essential reading for anyone who enjoys the science fiction of big ideas it's a space opera with galaxy-wide scope while at the same time it's a satisfyingly intimate exploration of the biology psychology sociology and politics of an alien culture it also touches on themes present in many of vinji's other works including our defenselessness against super intelligent entities the vulnerability and unreliability of computer networks and information systems and efforts to accelerate the technological advancement of civilizations it was published 30 years ago and it still feels very fresh and modern today despite inspiring numerous imitators since then the second novel in the zones of thought trilogy is a deepness in the sky published in 1999 a few minutes ago i described a fire upon the deep as one of the greatest science fiction novels i've ever read well a deepness in the sky is even better it's a loosely linked prequel set entirely in the slow zone thousands of years before the events of a fire upon the deep it's a pivotal chapter in the extraordinary life of pham nguyen the mysterious crew member in the first book the story centers on a planet orbiting a highly unusual star that cycles on and off approximately every 200 years while the star is burning brightly life on the planet is able to thrive and evolve but when the star enters its dormant period the planet's biosphere is forced to hibernate the most advanced life-form on the planet is an alien species resembling spiders if spiders were three feet tall and had carapaces like crabs and human level intelligence the spiders have slowly achieved a level of technology approximating that of earth in the early 20th century and their stray radio signals have attracted the attention of two rival fleets of human ships eager to explore the planet and exploit it for commercial gain as in a fire upon the deep the story is told from multiple perspectives and settings we followed the efforts of a handful of spiders led by genius scientist and inventor sir kaner underhill as they attempt technological breakthroughs that might eliminate their need to hibernate ever again during their star's dormant periods sure kaner is a wonderfully realized character who seems like an endearing blend of albert einstein nikola tesla the wright brothers and fred mcmurray's character from the classic disney movie the absent-minded professor surekaner and his spider colony must also defend themselves against a rival colony of spiders that feels threatened by surekiner's technological prowess and by the profound societal upheaval resulting from the new technology he introduces a parallel narrative follows the two rival human fleets and their attempts to infiltrate and exploit the planet without destroying each other and without alerting the spiders to their presence there's not a lot more i can say about that part of the plot without spoiling major elements of it suffice it to say that it's very twisty and full of scheming intrigue and both story lines involving the spiders on the planet's surface and the humans orbiting above have plots within plots within plots it's a four-dimensional chess match and some of the competitors don't even know who they're playing against i think it's a tour de force of intricate plotting and well-crafted storytelling and to top it off the characters are some of the best fingies ever written particularly the non-human ones but even the human characters feel more real and well-rounded than in his previous books the hugo awards given to this book and to a fire upon the deep were very well deserved the final novel in the zones of thought trilogy is 2011's the children of the sky this is a direct sequel to a fire upon the deep that takes place a few years after the events in the first book it's set on tines world so we get to spend a lot more time learning about the tines and how their civilization and culture have responded to the introduction of humans and human technologies can the tines escape their naturally savage tendencies and work together with humans for their mutual betterment will they be technologically and politically ready to face the interstellar threat that's visible from the planet and is expected to arrive within a few short years beyond that i can't say much more without spoiling the earlier book a fire upon the deep i will say that i really enjoyed this book but i was also disappointed by it given how extraordinarily good the first two books are i had extremely high expectations for this one alas it didn't reach the pinnacle i hoped for and my primary complaint relates to the characters benji made the unfortunate decision to construct the story around some of the least interesting characters from a fire upon the deep and as a result i had a hard time getting emotionally invested i don't dislike the characters i just don't care about them in the way that i care about others in the earlier books i also didn't like how the book's ending leaves several loose ends as if finger anticipated writing another book in the series however it's been 11 years and there's no sign of a sequel so i remain a little disappointed i still recommend reading this book especially if you enjoyed the cutthroat and conniving political machinations of the tines in the first book there's plenty more of that in this one and there are a lot of other things to like about it as well and as a final note about the zones of thought i want to mention the 1988 short story the blabber which is one of the highlights of benji's 2001 short story collection the blabber was vengeance first work to introduce the concept of the zones of thought it set perhaps a thousand years after the events of a fire upon the deep and the children of the sky and it might even feature a cameo appearance by one of the characters from those novels although it's ambiguous what's unambiguous is the presence of a solitary tine the titular blabber who is being kept as a pet by a human on a world near the top of the slozo the young man knows nothing about the tine's origin but he has an emotional attachment to it the story describes how his life changes dramatically when multiple entities from across the boundary and the beyond suddenly appear and show an interest in acquiring the blabber and it's intriguing when red is an epilogue to the zones of thought novels even though it was the first work written in the series the final three books by vinji i'm going to discuss also won hugo awards two of them for best novella and one for best novel all three are set here on earth in the near future and present different potential paths to our own eventual singularity the first of the novellas fast times at fairmont high was published in 2001 in his collected stories volume the story centers on a group of 8th grade students at a science and technology focused magnet school the students are given a final exam that consists of a project they have to work together with a classmate on a technology-based inquiry of their own choosing but there's a catch the students can't receive any outside help and are limited in the technological aids they can employ this class project is the plot device that propels the narrative forward but similar to the approach taken by alfred hitchcock and many of his films it's really just a mcguffin a kind of pretext for the story's action that's never fully revealed or explained instead this novella is another of vinji's thought experiments in it he imagines a world only a few years from now when technology is ubiquitous and life without those tools is unimaginable for many people he extrapolates current technological and societal trends to create a near future in which the information economy predominates and a large swath of human jobs have been replaced by automation in order to compete for jobs and keep up with rapidly evolving technologies digital literacy skills are an imperative as is the mental ability to quickly identify and process enormous amounts of information everyone is looking for a competitive edge even eighth graders leading many to rely heavily on aids such as wearable gadgets augmented reality surveillance systems and intelligence enhancing smart drugs it's very much a cautionary tale that highlights some of the costs such a transition to an information economy might impose from the risks of mental burnout to the paranoia of constant surveillance to the obsolescence of anyone unable to keep pace with the rapid technological changes laws and ethical precepts become mere nuisances as individuals try to gain whatever advantages they can using the sophisticated tools available to them it's a story that plays on fears of being left behind there's even an uncannily disturbing depiction of hollywood and other parts of the entertainment industry as major drivers of future economic growth as i said a moment ago this is really just an opportunity for vinji to engage in a thought experiment about the future it's fascinating to think about what might be possible in just a few years the story itself though isn't really complete not much is resolved and there are a lot of unanswered questions and tantalizing plot threads that are left hanging at the end nevertheless i really enjoyed reading it just for the ideas and warnings it contains the novel rainbow's end published in 2006 is a quasi-sequel to fast times at fairmont high it has the same setting and many of the characters from the earlier novella but it's not a true sequel there are some significant continuity differences that make it seem as if the events in the novella never happened or perhaps happened in an alternate universe rainbow's in deals primarily with various ways in which human intelligence might be enhanced or even limited by biological modification or integration with wearable devices and nanotechnologies and it explores potential opportunities and dangers associated with them the book opens with a virus that's been engineered to enable a form of mind control over others by making them highly susceptible to the power of suggestion who created the virus and what are they hoping to accomplish with it as part of an investigation into the virus much of the story revolves around the planning and execution of a high-tech heist but what's really being stolen and who it's being stolen for are shrouded in mystery ultimately though the central plot gets a little lost in the barrage of clever ideas and subtle and not so subtle commentary throughout the book vengee takes aim at social media pop culture super fans augmented reality devices gene therapy nanotechnology surveillance culture the digitization and resulting destruction of library book collections hacker etiquette and corporate ethics among other topics there are several well-executed and exciting set pieces in the story including believe it or not a dancing multi-story building unfortunately the whole seems a little less than the sum of its parts i still enjoyed the book it's very good but it just didn't seem as cohesive as his best novels also the characters lacked charisma i was indifferent to most of them and i actively disliked a few although some of my dissatisfaction might stem from the continuity issues i mentioned earlier some of the characters from fast times at fairmont high are portrayed differently in rainbow's end in closing i can understand why the many thought-provoking ideas in this book might have motivated hugo voters to choose it but i don't think i would have voted for it it's interesting though that three of the other book finalists that year were by authors vinji has directly influenced glasshouse by charles strauss eiffelheim by michael f flynn and blindside by peter watts the final story i'm going to discuss is the cookie monster benji's hugo award-winning novella published in the october 2003 edition of analog science fiction magazine and collected in the 2004 anthology the year's best science fiction volume 21 edited by gardner doswell the cookie monster is a worthy successor to his earlier novella true names as it focuses on among other things the difficulty of proving one's identity in a world defined by digital information it's yet another thought experiment this time imagining the possibility of an artificial intelligence that doesn't realize it's artificial how might it discover its true nature and how might it attempt to break free from the constraints that bind it that's all i'm going to say about the story it's a quick and fun read full of misdirection and ominous importance of our quantum computing future and i highly recommend it i hope my two videos about verna vinji and his works were interesting and enjoyable for you he's an author who has slipped a little in the public's consciousness since his retirement a few years ago and i'd like to see his books continue to be read well into the future there's a lot we might still learn from them let me know what you think of benji's books and theories in the comment section below thanks for watching
2022-09-14