About the show
Robert J. Sawyer is one of only eight writers ever to win all three of the world's top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In the first half, he discussed the frontiers of technology, AI, and his new novel, "The Downloaded," which ponders what happens when a group of cryogenically frozen people are uploaded into a virtual reality and then forced to download back into physicality again. Set in the year 2059, Sawyer believes this is a plausible date for such technology to be developed. He also talked about how, though his novel had just been published, it had been featured earlier as an exclusive audiobook on Audible, with Brendan Fraser as the lead character.
As far as writing science-fiction, he quoted the author Theodore Sturgeon, saying, "Always ask the next question," which leads the writer to examine the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects of new technologies, "and it's really only the science-fiction writer who has that as their job remit" to speculate and both the possible upsides and downsides, Sawyer commented. AI has exploded in recent months and he believes that its true intelligence is likely to emerge within the near future. It will be able to compose excellent novels within six years, he predicted. "I suspect that it will be able to do it not just better than me, but better than William Shakespeare, better than the best writers ever in human history," as it will read and digest a massive library of books, as well as the reviews and commentary about them," he added.
• sfwriter.com
Relevant Books:
• The Downloaded
• Flashforward
• Quantum Night
• The Skin That Crawls
https://sfwriter.com/
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