Gravity waves finally show up?

[Brian G Turner]

I've not read anything previously about gravity waves actually being detected - but this BBC article about recent observations of a pulsar suggest that they can now be inferred by observation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30752288

I could be getting confused, though - gravity waves is something I've not read much about, except attempts to detect them a couple of decades ago.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's effect of Gravity, but not the 'gravity waves' they'd love to detect.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

*builds spaceship that surfs gravity waves*

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Hmmm "Dark Star"?
(Also an example of why AI may be a bad idea even if it's possible)

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hmmm "Dark Star"?
(Also an example of why AI may be a bad idea even if it's possible)

Is there any example of any AI in literature/films that doesn't suggest that it is a bad idea?

Going back on topic, as Ray said, these optical observations of the binary stars are in line with general relativity (remarkably so it seems) but they haven't got a 'gravity wave detector' yet that can back this up by observing the oscillations of space-time that the pair of objects should cause as they pass through us.

 

[Nechtan]

Is there any example of any AI in literature/films that doesn't suggest that it is a bad idea?

The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks. But it's the only example I can think of.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Those are gods pretending to be AIs

 

[Nechtan]

AIs pretending to be gods pretending to be AIs?

 

[Vertigo]

Puts me in mind of Greg Egan's Diaspora which has two neutron stars in close orbit which is decaying (as is this one) and when one eventually falls into the other it is determined that they will release a burst of gamma rays so great they will destroy all life in the galaxy (not directly but due to their affects on planetary atmospheres). Ooo err!

However I'm not sure this particular example is exactly what is meant when scientist speculate about gravitational waves but I may be wrong.

Re the 'good AIs' off shoot. I can think of several: Mike in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Neal Asher's Polity AIs and (I think) Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth AIs

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Mike is slightly ambiguous though.

 

[Vertigo]

Yes I'd agree, but in the end he did willingly 'sacrifice' himself for the 'greater good.'

 

[Mirannan]

More "good" AIs include most of the Culture Minds, Multivac, R Daneel, and probably several trillion (at least!) AIs in the Orion's Arm milieu. In the case of Culture Minds and the OA canon, however, it might be rather difficult to tell whether they have the interests of humanity at heart - many of them are transapient, some very distinctly so.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'm not convinced about Daneel, especially as developed in the later books.
or the Culture Minds.
I don't really want to see the Human Race's Destiny controlled by clockwork pretending to be a god.

 

[Venusian Broon]

A full scale takeover of the thread

On the Good/Bad AI offshoot, Good still seems thin on the ground to me as if we look at the bad...

Screamers in Second Variety, Westworld androids going mad, Skynet, Most of the AI in the Alien series, Tron, Demon Seed, Wargames (ok, just averted...), the central computer in Logan's run, the machines in the Matrix series, HAL in 2001, AI removed by humanity in the Dune universe because of the harm they did, the crystal minds in The last legends of Earth, The Cylons in Battlestar Galatica, the replicators in the Stargate Universe, all AI that ever appear in the X-files, A for Andromeda...

I could go on.