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A comment on Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Rise of AI (1978). Parent comment

Re:Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Rise of AI (1978) by krapp on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @09:14PM (#44187343)
Asimov needed a plot device to serve as the inciting incident for mystery stories with robots, and parables about human hubris. That's all his Three Laws were. He was a pulp fiction writer, not a philosopher. He wasn't concerned with bringing abstract questions about AI alignment to a wider audience, he was concerned with selling stories and making a paycheck.

I like Asimov but I also think he's treated with a reverence he doesn't deserve.

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Re:Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Rise of AI (1978) by godelski on Thursday June 05, 2025 @03:35PM (#44195022)
He definitely was a philosopher. Here's some of his meta science work [0]. I mean it shouldn't be surprising, he had a PhD in chemistry and was a professor at Boston university. He wrote a lot more than science fiction.

I'm not calling him a god or anything. But I don't think it's surprising that someone that writes stories includes philosophy into it. I really don't think it's surprising a PhD educated writer is thinking about not that complicated of things.

The concept of understanding the limitations of your metrics and measures is a pretty basic science skill. Using this as a driver of some of his plots doesn't seem surprising. It's something he was doing in his daily life.

Forgive me if thinking of him as at least a university professor is reverence.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong

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