Hacker News with Generative AI: Science Fiction

Astronomical Calculations for Hard Sci-Fi in Common Lisp (2022) (borretti.me)
In The Epiphany of Gliese 581, a group of explorers search the mortal remains of a dead superintelligence. The expedition begins in Beta Pictoris—today an unremarkable blue star; in the story, a posthuman Dyson swarm civilization of quadrillions—then passes through Gliese 581, and ends where it started.

Science Fiction, Programming, Astronomy, Common Lisp

13 points by e-topy 12 days ago | 0 comments

Idiocracy (wikipedia.org)
Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film co-produced and directed by Mike Judge from a screenplay written by Judge and Etan Cohen based on a story written by Judge.

Science Fiction, Comedy, Film

87 points by zeristor 14 days ago | 25 comments

Black Mirror was a warmup act - OpenAI pivots into hardware (garymarcus.substack.com)
A very short story, in three acts

OpenAI, Hardware, Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Science Fiction

15 points by mdp2021 14 days ago | 5 comments

PyCon US 2025: Keynote Speaker – Cory Doctorow on Enshitification [video] (youtube.com)

Python, Conferences, Technology, Video, Science Fiction

12 points by bilsbie 15 days ago | 1 comments

The Machine Stops (1909) (standardebooks.org)

Science Fiction, Short Stories, Literature

136 points by xeonmc 16 days ago | 34 comments

How "Andor" Injects Contemporary Politics into "Star Wars" I.P (newyorker.com)
It’s rare to hear the word “genocide” uttered unequivocally on television, let alone on the streaming service Disney+. So it was a bit of a shock to encounter the term in a late episode of the second season of “Andor,” a “Star Wars”-spinoff miniseries that has become something like the “Game of Thrones” of George Lucas’s space-opera expanded universe: grittier, grungier, and more political than its predecessors.

Science Fiction, Politics, Television, Streaming

14 points by pseudolus 17 days ago | 10 comments

OpenAI co-founder wanted to build doomsday bunker to protect company scientists (nypost.com)
The co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI proposed building a doomsday bunker that would house the company’s top researchers in case of a “rapture” triggered by the release of a new form of artificial intelligence that could surpass the cognitive abilities of humans, according to a new book.

Artificial Intelligence, OpenAI, Technology, Science Fiction, Doomsday

6 points by Luc 18 days ago | 0 comments

Asimov saw it 80 years ago [video] (youtube.com)

Science Fiction, History, Video

7 points by sschmitt 18 days ago | 0 comments

Show HN: I Built a Prompt That Makes LLMs Think Like Heinlein's Fair Witness (fairwitness.bot)
Transform your LLM interactions in 5 simple steps

Artificial Intelligence, Prompt Engineering, Science Fiction

16 points by 9wzYQbTYsAIc 19 days ago | 8 comments

Starship Troopers Revolutionize Warfighting (perfectingequilibrium.substack.com)
Rockets will change logistics.

Military, Science Fiction, Logistics, Space Exploration

39 points by Michelangelo11 20 days ago | 56 comments

'Murderbot' is the best new comedy of 2025 (text.npr.org)
Folks? I'm worried about Murderbot.

Science Fiction, Comedy, Television, Artificial Intelligence

13 points by mooreds 21 days ago | 1 comments

Human (quarter--mile.com)
Imagine, for a moment, a world with no humans. Just machines, bolts and screws, zeros and ones. There is no emotion. There is no art. There is only logic.

Science Fiction, Humanity, Artificial Intelligence

737 points by surprisetalk 23 days ago | 270 comments

Filk Music (wikipedia.org)
Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor.

Music, Fandom, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror

6 points by akkartik 23 days ago | 1 comments

Why alien languages could be far stranger than we imagine Essays (aeon.co)
Imagining how aliens might communicate prepares us for first contact and illuminates the nature of our own languages

Alien Languages, Linguistics, Communication, Science Fiction, Extraterrestrial Life

24 points by rbanffy 26 days ago | 34 comments

Ursula K. Le Guin on the TV Earthsea. (2004) (slate.com)
On Tuesday night, the Sci Fi Channel aired its final installment of Legend of Earthsea, the miniseries based—loosely, as it turns out—on my Earthsea books. The books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, which were published more than 30 years ago, are about two young people finding out what their power, their freedom, and their responsibilities are. I don’t know what the film is about.

Science Fiction, Television, Books, Fantasy

8 points by Tomte 28 days ago | 0 comments

Use of Weapons (foliosociety.com)
Part mind-bending thriller, part haunting character study, this third 'Culture' novel twists time and loyalty into a heart-stopping sci-fi epic. A thrilling Folio edition with surreal, cinematic artwork from series artist Dániel Taylor.

Science Fiction, Novels, Art

5 points by saltysalt 28 days ago | 0 comments

Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy (gizmodo.com)
Another year, yet another Hugo Awards-adjacent controversy? That might be what fans of sci-fi lit and related media are thinking, with news today that a trio of leaders from the Seattle 2025 Worldcon, the upcoming iteration of the convention where the Hugos are annually presented, have resigned.

Science Fiction, Awards, Resignation, Controversy

13 points by doctoboggan 31 days ago | 2 comments

Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy (gizmodo.com)
Another year, yet another Hugo Awards-adjacent controversy? That might be what fans of sci-fi lit and related media are thinking, with news today that a trio of leaders from the Seattle 2025 Worldcon, the upcoming iteration of the convention where the Hugos are annually presented, have resigned.

Science Fiction, Awards, Controversies, Resignations

4 points by pseudolus 32 days ago | 5 comments

Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy (gizmodo.com)
Another year, yet another Hugo Awards-adjacent controversy? That might be what fans of sci-fi lit and related media are thinking, with news today that a trio of leaders from the Seattle 2025 Worldcon, the upcoming iteration of the convention where the Hugos are annually presented, have resigned.

Science Fiction, Awards, Conventions, Resignations, Controversy

7 points by HiroProtagonist 32 days ago | 3 comments

No! Repent! From! Harlan! (1998) (harlanellison.com)
A fair review of Harlan Ellison's credentials would take more wordage than allowed for this entire interview.

Science Fiction, Authors, Literature

26 points by Michelangelo11 32 days ago | 6 comments

Star Trek documentary reveals Lucille Ball's sci-fi influence (2021) (inverse.com)
Without Lucy, we’d never have reached the Final Frontier.

Star Trek, Television, History, Documentary, Science Fiction

6 points by dxs 34 days ago | 0 comments

The Philosophy of Cyberpunk: High-Tech Rebels and Neon Dreams (newintrigue.com)
The future has never seemed closer, yet we’re still struggling to find our place in it. It’s no surprise, then, that many of us are turning back to the cyberpunk genre. Its’ a world of hackers, rebels, and misfits, in the form of new videogames, movies, and novels.

Cyberpunk, Science Fiction, Technology, Culture

6 points by rntn 34 days ago | 0 comments

Welcome to the Future: The 2020s, the cyberpunk vision that arrived on schedule (noahpinion.blog)
The years of my youth must have been such a disappointment for sci-fi fans of my parents’ generation. They were raised on stories of spaceships soaring between the stars, and they grew up to see the space shuttle explode and humankind abandon the moon. They grew up expecting flying cars and robot servants, but as they reached middle age they were still trundling along the ground and doing their own laundry.

Science Fiction, Technology, History, Culture

13 points by goranmoomin 34 days ago | 4 comments

Elon Musk Just Doesn't Understand the Sci-Fi Visions of Iain M. Banks (lithub.com)
In June of 2018, before he declared himself “Dark MAGA” and before he wore a hat with the inscription “Trump Was Right About Everything,” Elon Musk took to a social media platform he did not yet own to describe his own politics.

Science Fiction, Elon Musk, Politics, Social Media

57 points by mitchbob 37 days ago | 39 comments

To 'Reclaim Future-Making', Amazon Workers Published Collection of SciFi Stories (afteramazon.world)
In 2023, the Worker as Futurist Project supported 13 rank-and-file Amazon workers to write short, speculative fiction about The World After Amazon. The result is the book featured on this website.

Amazon, Science Fiction, Labor, Speculative Fiction

91 points by m463 40 days ago | 81 comments

In Memoriam: SF and Fine Artist David Schleinkofer (downthetubes.net)
We’re sorry to report the passing of American SF and fine artist David Schleinkofer, who died earlier this week, of Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Art, Obituaries, Science Fiction

13 points by omnibrain 40 days ago | 1 comments

We need more optimistic science fiction (craig-russell.co.uk)
As a genre, science fiction has a proud heritage of shaping the future. We find it entertaining to imagine what the world could be like. Science fiction enables us to explore possible futures, and through exploring them, decide for ourselves what future we want to create.

Science Fiction, Future, Optimism

141 points by craig552uk 40 days ago | 199 comments

Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining (simonwillison.net)
Watching OpenAI’s new o3 model guess where a photo was taken is one of those moments where decades of science fiction suddenly come to life. It’s a cross between the Enhance Button and Omniscient Database TV Tropes.

Artificial Intelligence, Image Recognition, Technology, Computer Vision, Science Fiction

987 points by simonw 42 days ago | 433 comments

Ask HN: Best audiobooks you've listened to recently? (Cosmic horror/non-fiction) (ycombinator.com)
I have a long flight coming up and I’m looking for audiobook recommendations — fiction or non-fiction. If it’s fiction would be interested in cosmic horror or sci fi genres.

Audiobooks, Recommendations, Science Fiction, Cosmic Horror

13 points by febed 42 days ago | 13 comments

Show HN: I built an app so I could read the 3 Body-Problem in Chinese (readly.ink)
No more time lost looking words up and adding to Anki flashcards. Do it all with Readly, in a single tap.

Software, Language Learning, China, Science Fiction, Productivity

29 points by alexSimpson96 46 days ago | 13 comments