Sep 4, 2012
The Life-cycle of Software
Objects is a
story by Ted Chiang about our relationship with artificial
intelligence and what it means to be alive. It's kind of a
peculiar read but well worth it, as we quickly discovered.
Joining Dion and Phil to discuss the tale is our guest host, the
delightful Dee - otherwise known as 'Faint
Dreams.'
Now, don't go
skipping straight past. I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking 'I've never heard of it, never read it, so why
listen to the podcast?' Well, Firstly we're bloody
brilliant. Honest, guv'nor. Secondly, it's actually a
pretty quick read - a novella rather than a book (Around 60
pages.) Thirdly, The Life-cycle Of Software
Objects is
available right
here for free, and Fourthly
it's an absolute corker. We've all had ideas and questions
exploding in our brains long after we finished reading
it.
So you're not
going anywhere, right?
Right
:-D
You snuggle
down and start reading, I'll just sit here and... I dunno, tweet or
something.
Dum de
dum... de dum... de dum...
Ready?
Brilliant.
For those of
you interested in reading more of Ted Chiang's work, there is a
round-up of his stories at Metafilter, all free and
perfectly legal. Some are in text, some are audiobooks.
Here also is a separate link for the story that Dee mentions right
at the end of the podcast, called 'Liking What You See: A
Documentary.'
Want to know a little more about Artificial Intelligence? You could listen to Dissecting Worlds (cheap shot) or have a look at this wikipedia entry. Most edifying.
As ever,
feedback is appreciated. You can tweet @Dion_Scrolls, @Phlambler or
@FaintDreams, e-mail us at scrolls@hotmail.co.uk or share your
views with everyone in the Comments section
below.
We hope you
enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed
making it.
Keep
reading.