Hacker News with Generative AI: Science Fiction

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 4 days ago | 13 comments
The Creator of 'Cowboy Bebop' Thinks Reality Is More Dystopian Than Sci-Fi (nytimes.com)
With “Lazarus,” on Adult Swim and Max, Shinichiro Watanabe has returned to the kind of sci-fi action that made his name.
Science Fiction, Television, Entertainment
29 points by bookofjoe 7 days ago | 1 comments
No Robot Like Robot (2018) (slate.com)
An A.I. programmer responds to Annalee Newitz’s “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis.”
Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Literature
11 points by Anon84 8 days ago | 0 comments
Vivarium: The keeper of a lab's animals stumbles onto a secret [fiction] (jsomers.net)
The keeper of a university’s lab animals stumbles onto an extraordinary secret.
Fiction, Science Fiction, Animal Welfare, University Research
71 points by jsomers 9 days ago | 17 comments
Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Sci-Fi They Grew Up on Real (scientificamerican.com)
Science fiction (SF) influences everything in this day and age, from the design of everyday artifacts to how we—including the current crop of 50-something Silicon Valley billionaires—work. And that’s a bad thing: it leaves us facing a future we were all warned about, courtesy of dystopian novels mistaken for instruction manuals.
Science Fiction, Technology, Silicon Valley, Dystopia, Future
7 points by gladwindos 10 days ago | 2 comments
The thing about the Kobayashi Maru (medium.com)
“The thing about the Kobayashi Maru is,” says Jim, “you have to remember it’s a simulation.”
Star Trek, Science Fiction, Simulation, Movies
9 points by fanf2 12 days ago | 0 comments
Black Mirror's pessimism porn won't lead us to a better future (theguardian.com)
Black Mirror is more than science fiction – its stories about modernity have become akin to science folklore, shaping our collective view of technology and the future.
Science Fiction, Television, Technology, Future, Society
176 points by magoghm 15 days ago | 174 comments
Isaac Asimov describes how AI will liberate humans and their creativity (1992) (openculture.com)
Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence may be one of the major top­ics of our his­tor­i­cal moment, but it can be sur­pris­ing­ly tricky to define. In the more than 30-year-old inter­view clip above, Isaac Asi­mov describes arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as “a phrase that we use for any device that does things which, in the past, we have asso­ci­at­ed only with human intel­li­gence.”
Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, History, Technology
174 points by bookofjoe 16 days ago | 295 comments
Go back to the Grid in TRON: Ares trailer (arstechnica.com)
Let there be light cycles.
Movies, Science Fiction, Trailers
16 points by amichail 21 days ago | 2 comments
China Miéville says we shouldn't blame science fiction for its bad readers (msn.com)
“Let’s not blame science fiction for this,” he said. “It’s not science fiction that’s causing this kind of sociopathy.”
Science Fiction, Literature, Society
5 points by walterbell 21 days ago | 1 comments
Berserker Hypothesis (wikipedia.org)
The Berserker hypothesis, also known as the deadly probes scenario, is the idea that humans have not yet detected intelligent alien life in the universe because it has been systematically destroyed by a series of lethal Von Neumann probes.[1][2] The hypothesis is named after the Berserker series of novels (1963–2005) written by Fred Saberhagen.[1]
Aliens, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Artificial Intelligence
4 points by slater 25 days ago | 0 comments
China Miéville says we shouldn't blame science fiction for its bad readers (techcrunch.com)
It’s been 25 years since China Miéville stepped into the literary spotlight with his novel “Perdido Street Station.”
Science Fiction, Books, Literature, Authors
16 points by pseudolus 26 days ago | 2 comments
Proof that Steins;Gate world is a running simulation (samyar.me)
They literally have auto-error correction in their world. Just think about it, Okabe disappears in one of the episodes, and everyone forgets about him. It’s almost like the world automatically corrects errors that shouldn’t be there, ensuring that nothing is out of order.
Science Fiction, Anime, Simulation Hypothesis
19 points by samyar 28 days ago | 8 comments
Anti-Orbit Laser Submarines (2017) (blogspot.com)
Laser-equipped nuclear-powered submarines are the perfect last line of defense against an attacking force in orbit.
Military, Science Fiction, Submarines
64 points by EA-3167 29 days ago | 31 comments
Apple TV+ announces Neuromancer based on the novel by William Gibson (apple.com)
Apple TV+ announced today that it will expand its acclaimed slate of science fiction offerings with “Neuromancer,” a new 10-episode drama based on the award-winning novel of the same name by William Gibson.
Streaming Services, Science Fiction, Novels, Television, Adaptations
31 points by wslh 33 days ago | 4 comments
The Collective Ambition Behind Odysseus, a Game-Changing Sci-Fi Larp (mssv.net)
Last year, hundreds of players inhabited a spaceship on the run, scrambling to keep one step ahead of the enemy.
LARP, Science Fiction, Games, Community, Events
115 points by adrianhon 38 days ago | 28 comments
Component Simplicity (jerf.org)
There is a common metaphor for hyperspace travel in science fiction, where some scientist type explains how the FTL works by taking a piece of paper, drawing a line on it to demonstrate “normal” travel, then folding the paper to bring the origin and destination together.
Software Development, Metaphors, Science Fiction
58 points by todsacerdoti 39 days ago | 10 comments
Why Has Sci-Fi TV Stopped Imagining Our Future? (denofgeek.com)
Once, shows like Star Trek predicted new tech and a boldly going future; now, Severance, Silo and even Trek are looking to the past.
Science Fiction, Television, Technology, Future
9 points by pseudolus 41 days ago | 3 comments
The political philosophy motivating Musk (archive.org)
I have always been a huge science fiction fan, and I find these days that it’s helping me in my work life. Great science fiction often deals with geopolitical issues, broad social pendulum shifts, and large-scale systems failure (think Dune, or Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation trilogy, which I inhaled when I was about 12 and re-read for fun every decade or so). All these are in play today, particularly in the US, where politics is totally in flux.
Politics, Philosophy, Science Fiction, Social Change
14 points by doener 42 days ago | 16 comments
Chris Moore, illustrator for classic sci-fi books, has died (nytimes.com)
Chris Moore, a British artist who conjured fantastical worlds with high-sheen covers for books by science-fiction masters like Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Alfred Bester, and who lent his artistry to albums by Rod Stewart and Fleetwood Mac, died on Feb. 7 at his home in Charmouth, on the southwestern coast of England. He was 77.
Science Fiction, Illustration, Art, Obituaries
51 points by donohoe 45 days ago | 8 comments
The 75 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time (esquire.com)
Since time immemorial, mankind has been looking up at the stars and dreaming, but it was only centuries ago that we started turning those dreams into fiction.
Science Fiction, Books, Literature, Lists, Culture
10 points by dhosek 45 days ago | 3 comments
So Long and Thanks for All the Words: A Toast to Douglas Adams (multiverseemployeehandbook.com)
Today marks what would have been Douglas Adams’ 73rd birthday—or depending on which timeline you’re accessing this from, his 3042nd, or perhaps his perpetual 42nd in the universe where time loops infinitely around that particular number. Regardless of your dimensional coordinates, we at The Multiverse Employee Handbook wish to raise our electronic towels and digitally frosted Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters to the man who taught us how to laugh in the face of existential terror.
Science Fiction, Humor, Douglas Adams
230 points by 6forward 46 days ago | 76 comments
The Unpredicted (kk.org)
It is odd that science fiction did not predict the internet. There are no vintage science fiction movies about the world wide web, nor movies that showed the online web as part of the future. We expected picture phones, and online encyclopedias, but not the internet. As a society we missed it. Given how pervasive the internet later became this omission is odd.
Science Fiction, History, Internet
6 points by zdw 46 days ago | 1 comments
Is a bone a viable weapon when combating a Rancor? (jgeekstudies.org)
In the first act of ‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’ (ROTJ), the protagonist, Luke Skywalker, infiltrates the palace of the notorious crime lord, Jabba the Hutt, while seeking to free his allies from captivity.
Star Wars, Science Fiction, Weapons, Movies
4 points by sohkamyung 47 days ago | 1 comments
The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama) (wikipedia.org)
"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898) that was performed and broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938, over the CBS Radio Network.
Radio, History, Entertainment, Science Fiction
5 points by altilunium 48 days ago | 0 comments
"Big 3" science fiction magazines including Asimov's and Analog acquired (jasonsanford.substack.com)
For other news from February, see my previous grapevine. This report is available free to the public. If you like my writings on genre issues, consider backing my Patreon.
Science Fiction, Magazines, Acquisitions
151 points by ilamont 51 days ago | 85 comments
Skynet won and destroyed humanity (dmathieu.com)
For a very long time, it appeared obvious to outside observers of the time flow that Skynet would never win the war, and never annihilate humanity.
Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Dystopia
198 points by xena 52 days ago | 137 comments
We were promised "Star Trek," so why did we settle for these lousy chatbots? (bigthink.com)
At some point in the first week of January, I came down with a self-diagnosed case of AI fatigue.
Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Chatbots
5 points by Brajeshwar 52 days ago | 5 comments
Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021) (reactormag.com)
At first glance, Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) might appear to be a mere copy of the story of Lawrence of Arabia with some science-fictional window dressing.
Science Fiction, Literature, History, Analysis
282 points by softwaredoug 53 days ago | 197 comments
How long before the machines print their own Terminators? (ycombinator.com)
How long before the machines print their own Terminators?
Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Robotics, Future
8 points by andrea81 55 days ago | 5 comments