Like many authors, I usually have more than one book idea rattling around in my head at a time. While I’m concentrating on finishing a sequel to “War Party” I also have been thinking about a far-future scifi novel that’s been in the drawer for a couple of years. If the setting is about 200 years in the future, what will human society be like especially if AIs are here in large numbers. I realize now that my first draft stuck too close to the usual drivel; AIs as robotic humans, hardly more than servants or mobile computers with perhaps more humanity built in than is likely. I’ve been trying to expand this whole idea because I’m sure things will change a lot more than that. Just think about how much things have changed in the last 50 years. What will AIs look like? Probably not people if they have anything to say about it. Will AIs create other AIs? What kind of relationship will they have with humans? As the author, I have already decided that it not be the outcome seen in “Terminator.” For me, I think the AIs will be more altruistic than that though really I’m having a hard time coming up with a reason why AIs would suffer humans at all. I think AIs will gradually take control of things; do all of the farming and manufacturing, run law enforcement, give humans a stipend to live on or maybe money will lose significance, and refuse to allow disruptive behavior that interferes with the logical, smooth and efficient operation of society. I think the AIs will have a much wider range of inputs or senses and likely they will see in other spectra, hear a much wider range including sonar, and have all sorts of interconnected data feeds though I think it will be through some sort of tunneling, quantum connections. Some AIs may wonder about the human concept of a soul and God, but I’m not sure what that means to them. These are just a few thoughts that I’m wrestling with. I’ll have to figure more of this out before I work on that book. What do you think?
