Apparently word of god is that there is going to be no AI.
I was thinking about this recently, and I realized that maybe it should be kind of obvious why he doesn't usually do fiction about AI: because (he believes, at least, that) the first strong AI is either an instant win condition or instant failure condition for the entire universe, and neither immutable utopia nor irrecoverable catastrophe make for very interesting stories. So anything interesting or uncertain or suspenseful about AI has to be written about disguised as other topics, where things can go wrong but then realistically be set right.
AI is not an instant-win condition, but it would be fairly quick. There could be drama with the AI trying to develop nanotech, (running up against physical speed constraints rather than mental) before some sort of disaster hits, although this does remove agency from the humans who would mostly be following the AI's commands.
I think AI can still be part of a story, provided it's kept towards the final chapter. Developing true self-improving superhuman AI is rather like throwing the ring into Mt Doom - all that remains it to crown the king, mourn the (non-r...
New chapter!
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 102.
There is a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: