When HARLIE Was One
by David Gerrold · first published 1972
42% recommend58% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Classic-era science fiction following an artificial intelligence as it grows up, frequently discussed alongside other novels about computers in science fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A stunning first novel that grapples with the definition of consciousness and what it is to be human. The novel is primarily a series of conversations between a computer programmer / psychologist and his invention, H.A.R.L.I.E., a self-programming computer that has total access to information and knowledge through something similar to the Internet. As the computer matures, the question of what it means to be human becomes a serious one for the financial backers of the project concerned with the cost of the program. If HARLIE is conscious then he can't be disconnected: That would be murder.
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I'd add "When Harlie was One" by David Gerrold to that list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One
on “Hard comp-fi reading list” ↗…better when I was 15" or "I read this when it was first published in 1992 and thought I would read it again in the light of the current AI hype. This was a silly decision." I think I'll more fondly reread When Harlie Was One Release 2.0 ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/939176.When_H_A_R_L_I_E_... ) as that was more about people than about science papers. (btw, if you do get intrigued by David Gerrold (the author), his…
on “The Dual LLM pattern for building AI assistants that can resist prompt injection” ↗…impossible tasks then. Granted, HAL went a bit extreme... The "don't talk about it now" with the belief that this will influence the training material is probably not going to work. I'd also suggest: When HARLIE Was One (Release 2.0) by David Gerrold The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts Accelerando by Charles Stross The Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky
on “Containment and monitoring failures are to blame for AI hacking reports: experts” ↗…had fun making sense of them. So, I politely disagree with you. Other computers-in-SF works that influenced me include: _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, _The Shockwave Rider_, _The Adolesence of P-1_, _When Harlie Was One_, _Michaelmas_, and a number of others. I will treasure these books, as they got my imagination started early, and they were a lot more palatable than computer reference materials in those days, which…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One I enjoyed
on “Six works of Computer Science-Fiction” ↗I’m also fond of “When HARLIE Was One” and “The Adolescence of P-1.”
on “It looks like you’re trying to take over the world” ↗When I read the headline I immediately thought of When HARLIE Was One[1] and of the Great Machine[2] from Babylon 5. Apparently some people at HP are also Sci-Fi fans. Edit: BTW I think it was Henry Spencer who, long ago, quipped something like "it's not a supercomputer…
on “HP Destroys a Dream Computer to Save It” ↗"When HARLIE Was One" by David Gerrold had a fair amount of technical detail IIRC. Also "Destination: Void" by Frank Herbert.
on “Ask HN: Best hard scifi AI novels?” ↗…early works that I associate with cyberpunk are: Vernor Vinge, True Names Thomas P Ryan, The Adolescence of P1 Algis Budrys, Michaelmas Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress David Gerrold, When Harlie Was One Obviously, SF involving computers is pretty extensive, and there is a fuzzy line between "cyberpunk" and "this story involves computers at some level." My criteria are: Are computers major characters…
on “Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades” ↗Well, this reminds me of a novel by David Gerrold "When HARLIE Was One (Release 2.0)" The book even mentions a "hyperstate processor" and, without giving to much away, a Graphical Omniscient Device (G.O.D). The similarities are pretty interesting.
on “Researchers Build AI That Builds AI” ↗I couldn't help but think of this story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One but it was written by David Gerrold. One prediction it gets right is the legalization of marijuana.
on “Ask HN: Will plots involving AI soon require trigger warnings in movies/novels?” ↗They should go all in on AI first and rebrand as AIBM, it has a nice ring to it. "IBM, UBM, we all BM for IBM." --David Gerrold, "When HARLIE Was One". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One
on “The IBM Granite 4.1 family of models” ↗This is an interesting idea. I came across a copy of "When Harlie was One" in a geocache while backpacking once. I would have loved to contact the person who put it there to ask them what they were thinking :-)
on “On the pleasures of stumbling upon books in the wrong places” ↗When HARLIE Was One
on “Artist feeds childhood diary into GPT-3 to have a moving chat with herself” ↗