#prognostication — Public Fediverse posts

AI, Robot

I’m reading a collection of sci-fi stories about robots and AI with some really interesting and thoughtful takes on the topic, and just finished a particularly good one by Will McIntosh, “Nic and Viv’s Compulsory Courtship.” 

The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Second Annual Collection by Allan Kaster

I can’t share that particular story (but the library is your friend! the book is also available on Kindle Unlimited if you partake), but here’s another piece by McIntosh that you might like.

Defenders – Lightspeed Magazine

There was nothing to see yet; they were still above the smoky cloud-cover. It was hard to believe Australia was down there. Over the past twenty-eight years it had taken on almost mythical dimensions in Lila’s mind, and knowing she would see it any moment, see what it had become, set her heart pounding.

Enjoy!

* * *

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

-- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" (1995)

#America #government #economy #science #religion #CarlSagan #Sagan #prognostication #foreboding #ignorance #books

A quotation from James Thurber

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.

James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Letter (1961-07-05) to Marianna Brown

More about this quote: wist.info/thurber-james/82800/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #jamesthurber #future #lookingahead #lookingback #past #prediction #present #prognostication #today #tomorrow #yesterday

A quotation from Charles Mackay

The prophecies of Nostradamus consist of upwards of a thousand stanzas, each of four lines, and are to the full as obscure as the oracles of old. They take so great a latitude, both as to time and space, that they are almost sure to be fulfilled somewhere or other in the course of a few centuries.

Charles Mackay (1814-1889) Scottish poet, journalist, song writer
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, “Fortune-Telling” (1841)

More info about this quote: wist.info/mackay-charles/79638…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #charlesmackay #ambiguity #oracle #prediction #prognostication #prophecy #vagueness

Know your bird-related auguries.
#birds #prognostication

Cyberpunk is Gen X’s “populuxe”—or using aesthetics to predict the future https://www.davideriknelson.com/sbsb/index.php/2025/04/cyberpunk-is-gen-xs-populuxe-or-using-aesthetics-to-predict-the-future/ #dystopia #newsF #NowIsTheFuture #Prognostication #RecommendedReading #ScienceFiction #scifi #WilliamGibson

Lots of reports about how #datacenter operators/#hyperscalers are working on huge #capacity #expansions because of the sudden demand for #AI model-building (and to a lesser extent, inference usage). i.e.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/hyperscale_datacenter_capacity/

That one suggests capacity will triple over the next 6 years. Triple!

Easy #prognostication: in 2 or 3 years, when many companies realize "AI" isn't helping them much, they'll cut back. All that spare capacity makes #cloud #prices plummet...

#Bankruptcy for some?