Multi-Talent #ElleCordova @ellecordova plauscht mit Freundinnen in ihrem #ScienceFiction-Buchklub über den Kurzgeschichtenband »Exhalation« von #TedChiang. Bin ganz wuschig, denn zwei der Stories (Alchemist; Ausatmung) durfte ich für den #Golkonda Verlag ins Deutsche übersetzen.

https://www.youtube.com/live/GjsJGaQRltI

I just finished re-reading Understand, by Ted Chiang
It's a short scifi story. It has similar themes to Flowers for Algernon.

Here's the link if you want to read it for yourself:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060101043301/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm

I've also added it to my list of curios:
https://lzon.ca/curios

#SciFi #TedChiang #ShortStories #Bibliophile #ReadingList #Curios

#AI #TedChiang

"Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?

As it’s currently imagined, the technology promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative possible?

By Ted Chiang

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we rely on metaphor, as we always do when dealing with something new and unfamiliar. Metaphors are, by their nature, imperfect, but we still need to choose them carefully, because bad ones can lead us astray. For example, it’s become very common to compare powerful A.I.s to genies in fairy tales. The metaphor is meant to highlight the difficulty of making powerful entities obey your commands; the computer scientist Stuart Russell has cited the parable of King Midas, who demanded that everything he touched turn into gold, to illustrate the dangers of an A.I. doing what you tell it to do instead of what you want it to do. There are multiple problems with this metaphor, but one of them is that it derives the wrong lessons from the tale to which it refers. The point of the Midas parable is that greed will destroy you, and that the pursuit of wealth will cost you everything that is truly important. If your reading of the parable is that, when you are granted a wish by the gods, you should phrase your wish very, very carefully, then you have missed the point.

So, I would like to propose another metaphor for the risks of artificial intelligence. I suggest that we think about A.I. as a management-consulting firm, along the lines of McKinsey & Company. Firms like McKinsey are hired for a wide variety of reasons, and A.I. systems are used for many reasons, too. But the similarities between McKinsey—a consulting firm that works with ninety per cent of the Fortune 100—and A.I. are also clear. Social-media companies use machine learning to keep users glued to their feeds. In a similar way, Purdue Pharma used McKinsey to figure out how to 'turbocharge' sales of OxyContin during the opioid epidemic. Just as A.I. promises to offer managers a cheap replacement for human workers, so McKinsey and similar firms helped normalize the practice of mass layoffs as a way of increasing stock prices and executive compensation, contributing to the destruction of the middle class in America.

A former McKinsey employee has described the company as 'capital’s willing executioners': if you want something done but don’t want to get your hands dirty, McKinsey will do it for you. That escape from accountability is one of the most valuable services that management consultancies provide. Bosses have certain goals, but don’t want to be blamed for doing what’s necessary to achieve those goals; by hiring consultants, management can say that they were just following independent, expert advice. Even in its current rudimentary form, A.I. has become a way for a company to evade responsibility by saying that it’s just doing what 'the algorithm' says, even though it was the company that commissioned the algorithm in the first place.

The question we should be asking is: as A.I. becomes more powerful and flexible, is there any way to keep it from being another version of McKinsey?"

https://archive.ph/TAb8u#selection-449.0-485.149

Uitgelezen: ' Wat er van ons wordt verwacht - verhalen' door Ted Chiang

English title: 'Exhalation - stories' .

The Dutch version of the book has the title of the story 'What's Expected of Us'

(@ellecordova's SciFi book club)
#books #SciFi #ScienceFiction #stories
#TedChiang #Exhalation

“Would that we could choose the things that trouble us, but we can’t.” — Ted Chiang, Omphalos
#QOTD #TedChiang #Quotation #SerenityPrayer #Quote #Troublesome

https://yahooeysblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/21/quote-of-the-day-5376/

Tra gli autori contemporanei che hanno influenzato l’immaginario della #fantascienza negli ultimi decenni c’è sicuramente #TedChiang, scrittore statunitense di notevole intensità speculativa e vincitore dei maggiori premi del settore. La sua opera, contenuta per quantità ma importante per il numero di premi, l’impatto e il riscontro di pubblico ottenuti, ha ridefinito in qualche modo il rapporto tra #scienza e narrazione.

https://www.media.inaf.it/2025/11/21/intervista-ted-chiang/

#mediaINAF #letteratura #scrittori #futuro

Story of Your Life By Ted Chiang

☀️🚀🌌

This little quarto sized book is made from short grain warm white Church's paper, wooqu book cloth, and printed through inkjet. Endpapers hand painted by me using calligraphy ink. Original typeset by me, for personal use only. Cover designed by me using Canva.

Story of Your Life is a sci-fi short story by Ted Chiang. It was the basis for the sci-fi movie Arrival (2016).

#bookbinding
#handmade
#handboundbook
#artsandcrafts
#arrival
#tedchiang
#scifi

Durante la 25esima edizione del Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, l’Inaf ha deciso di premiare Chiang con l’Event Horizon Award 2025, riconoscendo la sua straordinaria capacità di trasformare concetti scientifici complessi in narrazioni capaci di emozionare e far riflettere.

https://www.media.inaf.it/2025/10/31/trieste-sciencefiction-festival-ted-chiang-arrival/

#inaf #trieste #scienceandfictionfestival #eventhorizonaward #tedchiang #fantascienza #letteratura #libri #scienza #storiedellatuavita #storiadellatuavita #arrival