SH Comments
Reged: Feb 16 2004
Posts: 1056
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This thread is for comments about The Algorithms for Love, by Ken Liu.
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Anonymous
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Nice story. Creepy, a good presentation of Searle's Chinese Room, feels realistically techie. The best part of it is the most fantastic element -- the protag's actual precognition of what other people will say, a la Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life". Creepy.
One small nit -- this line kicked me out:
"Nothing Tara ever said or did was a surprise to me. I could predict everything she would say before she said it. I'd coded everything in her, after all, and I knew exactly how her neural nets changed with each interaction."
After a very short run of a nontrivial-sized, relatively complex neural net, not even the designer is going to have any clue what set of connection weightings is now assigned. Her ability to predict Tara and all the other people works as spooky metaphor, as off-kilter fantasy, maybe even as soft-edged speculation on the deeper-than-we-know nature of intuition... but this line seems to make it into straight-up extrapolative hard SF, "I coded her -- I know how she works", and as such it seems like a gross misunderstanding of the technology in question.
Nonetheless, thanks for a spooky and intriguing tale.
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BenjaminRosenbaum
New user
Reged: Mar 08 2004
Posts: 13
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Oops, that was me, by the way
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Auros
Reviews Editor
Reged: Oct 15 2003
Posts: 8
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
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The thing about the Chinese Room is that those of us who've actually studied the technical aspects of AI and CogSci tend to think that Searle is wrong about the implications. No individual in the room understands Chinese, but the room as a whole does. Similarly, no single neuron in your brain understands English. But you're reading this just fine, right?
It's easy enough to reinterpret "free will" and "choice" as referring to conditions where your actions are dictated by your beliefs and desires (which have physical analogs in your brain). A choice is free if and only if having a different sane set of beliefs and desires than those you actually had could've resulted in you making a different choice.
The mind is just a set of complex algorithms, consciousness is an epiphenomenon, and as creepy as Searle may find that idea, it doesn't detract from the beauty and miraculousness of life. If anything, the notion that raw matter can be arranged to create something as complex as a person seems rather more mysterious than the simplistic, "And then somebody waved a magic wand and created free agency." In any case, I believe the thing that Liu's characters seem so afraid of, and it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of a walk in the park with a sweetheart. As a result, the story doesn't really come across as terribly creepy, even though it's very well-written. I really want to be sympathetic to the characters, but sort of end up feeling like they're just being silly.
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R Michael "Auros" Harman
Senior Reviews Editor
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Dawn B
Regular reader
Reged: Mar 31 2004
Posts: 32
Loc: Bay Area, California
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Very nice story. I really like it and I think that it deals with the question of AI and controlling humanity very well. Spooky too.
Dawn
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Auros wrote:
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In any case, I believe the thing that Liu's characters seem so afraid of, and it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of a walk in the park with a sweetheart.
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Well, not all of Liu's characters have this fear... only Elena, right?
The way I read the story, Liu is not saying that we should all have this fear, or that Elena is advanced beyond us all in her thinking. In fact, through Brad, he suggests that Elena has a distorted world view ("you're letting philosophy get in the way of reality.")
I think instead that (among other things) Liu is pointing out what happens when we take philosophical musings to the extreme, rather than engaging with reality.
To the extent that he hopes we will sympathize with Elena, it is because he suggests such people are still worthy of our love--not because they are "right."
I rather like the human element of the story... and for that reason, I (happily) don't find it to be creepy.
Just my interpretation, though.
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
After a very short run of a nontrivial-sized, relatively complex neural net, not even the designer is going to have any clue what set of connection weightings is now assigned. Her ability to predict Tara and all the other people works as spooky metaphor, as off-kilter fantasy, maybe even as soft-edged speculation on the deeper-than-we-know nature of intuition... but this line seems to make it into straight-up extrapolative hard SF, "I coded her -- I know how she works", and as such it seems like a gross misunderstanding of the technology in question.
I may be stretching Liu's intention here, but...
Just because Elena believed her predictive abilities came from an understanding of the programming doesn't mean that was the actual cause.
With her dolls, and with Tara, she actually may have been operating out of a sense of intuition (just like I do, when I know what my girlfriend will say before she says it).
However, because Elena has taken a single philosophical concept to its extreme, she misunderstands what is causing her to predict other people's responses.
My interpretation here might be supported by the fact, in truth, Elena does *not* always know what Tara will say. She had no idea Tara would say it was cold during the television interview, for instance.
To make my point short: it seems Liu has purposefully chosen an unreliable narrator, and I quite like that.
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Turtledragon
New user
Reged: Jul 17 2004
Posts: 1
Loc: Canada
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Short stories that flip back and forth are difficult to write because you want to make them easy to read. On that note, I enjoyed the story.
I know what AI is and not what it is all about. Some of the references to the machinery that makes up the dolls could very well be real or they could be invented. Ken did a good job of convincing me.
I like the reference to Salem and the 'poppets' and that she might very well be possessed of those same demons and sought to exorcise herself.
The chinese room problem introduced the character's feelings about artificial intelligence and what she felt about them. Whether or not Ken is convinced that the problem about understanding and intelligence can be related to what he wrote about requires an interview with him. He was discussing a character and the chinese room story is a facet of that. I'll let his characters speak for themselves then maybe let Ken pipe up and tell us what he thinks.
And the chinese room problem, I think, has more to do with how the main character considers intelligence and thought and manages to trivialize the whole human race, including herself. She destroys Tara in a fit of anger not being able to tell if she's dismantling a machine or commiting murder. The symbols of her world are pouring into her and she is responding in kind, sort of like the chinese room problem.
The only gripe is about the end, and this could have more to do with my reading skills than his writing skills. It seems to me that the doll became a person with all of the main character's personality and thoughts after she kills herself. Ken might have been working too hard at being clever at the end, in my opinion.
Thank you for a good story, Ken. I look forward to more with the same level of skill and craftmanship
RAR
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Started off interesting but became somewhat muddled and abstract towards the end. I liked the characters but the story is basically puffed out with too much techno-jargon and not enough drama for my liking, but maybe that's just me. I'd have prefered a little more tension, some drama.
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Auros
Reviews Editor
Reged: Oct 15 2003
Posts: 8
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
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Quote:
Well, not all of Liu's characters have this fear... only Elena, right?
Well, I got the impression that her husband agreed with her in the idea that if people were "just" data processors, that would be bad... he just didn't believe that, or hadn't even considered the issue long enough to know what he believed.
This sort of suggests an "ignorance is bliss" moral to the story. Which, as somebody who has been involved in efforts to remedy ignorance on precisely this topic, I find a bit annoying.
Just my opinion. YMMV.
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R Michael "Auros" Harman
Senior Reviews Editor
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