The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
by Williams, Roger · first published 2010
70% recommend28% neutral2% critical
Why HN recommends it
Dark, graphic novella on a post-singularity world where a 3-laws-compliant AI grants immortality and godlike power; praised as a gripping, twisted take on immortality as a curse. Free online; content is extreme and NSFW.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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The metamorphosis of prime intellect: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ Not sure whether it’s hard, it has quite an unexpected but plausible plot. There’s much love in me for this weird, twisted, brutal and captivating story — I think…
on “Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?” ↗…did!), you may also like Stross's stand-alone novels Palimpsest and Glasshouse [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest_(novella) The rougher "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" by Roger Williams is also worth trying: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ Also A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, and Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series. The latter can be read out of order;…
on “Accelerando (2005)” ↗The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64341.The_Metamorphosis_o...
on “Ask HN: Great nontech book that you read recently?” ↗The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect - Roger Williams As someone who seems themselves as a technologist (all this stuff we're working on will eventually work out for the best, warts be damned), this story was an existential-crisis-inducing…
on “Ask HN: What books fundamentally changed the way you think about the world?” ↗If you enjoyed Permutation City, you‘d probably also like „The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect“ by Roger Williams! It explores a similar premise of a post-singularity future (though the mechanism is superintelligence rather than cellular automata/mind uploading), but rather than imagining exactly…
on “Permutation City (1994)” ↗If you enjoy this story, you might enjoy the short unpublished novel, "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"[1] by Roger Williams. A story where 1990's humans invent a 3-laws-compliant super AI that accidentally "ascends" humanity. We become as gods, or the Q Continuum, but remain a grievously savage child…
on “Isaac Asimov: The Last Question” ↗…qntm (Sam Hughes) - *Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories* — Speculative Fiction, Computing Themes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56516939-valuable-humans... ## Roger Williams - *The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect* — AI, Post-Singularity SF https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/258140.The_Metamorphosis... ## Greg Bear - *Eon* — Hard Science Fiction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/924843.Eon ## Vernor…
on “Ask HN: What fiction books would you recommend for programmers?” ↗While we are on the topic of great sf shorts: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: http://users.pop.umn.edu/~matt0350/images/forumcrap/october/... The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html
on “The Machine Stops (1909)” ↗You might enjoy The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect [1]. It addresses these themes quite directly. The thing is, we're sort of talking (still somewhat hypothetically) about the Internet becoming more like hard drugs here in terms of entertainment/pleasure/addiction…
on “Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends” ↗…troubles already..." yes, yes, I know. But first, it's not a response to the argument. Second, though: what about when those troubles, and then the ones left after that, are eliminated? I've long liked "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ in part because it shows what might be wrong with just such a world. Would Abraham Lincoln still have been who he was if he didn't have Marfan syndrome? Or what…
on “Child With Missing Cerebellum Shows Power of Human Spirit” ↗This genre is my favorite. For anyone who wants to read more similar to it: Three Worlds Collide (Metaethics, moral relativism, etc) http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (Thinking machines, brains-in-vats experience machine, a world without death) This one is my favorite of the three http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiall.html The Last Question (Thinking machines,…
on “The Last Answer” ↗I'm reading that book right now, and so far it's good. One can also read: Anathem, Snow Crash, http://qntm.org/ra, or (extremely NSFW) The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. All of them explore the nature of reality and consciousness in some way. To the parent commenter, please write your story. The world always needs good fiction.
on “Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds” ↗The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Read it for free here. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
on “Books That Changed My Life” ↗Thanks for these recommendations, "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" made great reading.
on “The Last Answer” ↗None of these are to be taken super seriously, but they are nonetheless very brain tickling. Three Worlds Collide http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiall.html The Last Question http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Answer http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/ Let's Help Germinate This…
on “Ask HN: What's the best writing you've ever seen online?” ↗