But in an arguably righteous way, which makes it even more challenging. (Specifically, the idea that humanity was essentially meaningless and dead already due to the lack of any real challenges or goals, as well as the desire to free the hundreds of alien worlds that had been frozen by PI.)
> Specifically, the idea that humanity was essentially meaningless and dead already due to the lack of any real challenges or goals
This is what I'm talking about though, this was wholly decided by the protagonists. They were certain that the lives of everyone else were worthless. The people who they were exterminating didn't get any input in the decision.
This is a common feature among humanity's most absolutely vile monsters.
The point of the book seems to be to argue about philosophical questions like what is or isn't human:
> But it remains a feedback control mechanism. It has desires, it asks Prime Intellect to satisfy those desires, and it has more desires. From Prime Intellect's perspective, that is what a human being is, an information structure that gives it stuff to do.
> Caroline interrupted him. "That's a tautology. The Laws say 'do this for human beings,' then you define 'human being' as 'guys you do stuff for under the Laws.'"
Do you feel bad for zombies in zombie movies? What about feeling sorry for ghosts in ghost stories? My point isn't that the answer is clear-cut, it's just that the underlying question isn't whether or not Catherine and Lawrence are horrible people, the question is whether humanity was even human anymore. Or even, whether humanity was even life anymore.
So in the spirit of that discussion--why do you think the things that Prime Intellect served were human?
> So in the spirit of that discussion--why do you think the things that Prime Intellect served were human?
I can't speak for the fictional group of humanity as a whole in that story, but I'd wager _they_ felt they were human, and there was an unambiguous lineage from the original humans.
I understand that it's just a story that makes you think about the grey area, it's just that for me it ends at "we used a sploit to genocide the human race because we were super bored reactionaries."
The redeeming theory for me is that their ending is just for them, Prime Intellect just sort of walls them off in their own shard and the rest of humanity goes on without noticing.
Implicit in your view is that if something thinks it’s human then it must be. I think that is an interesting viewpoint.
When I read the end, I felt relieved. It felt like a nightmare was over. So my viewpoint is that those creatures were not real / living in a literal sense, but more like remnants of something that was once really alive.
How are ants at your picnic different
Wrong metaphor given the AI in the story*, try "rats in Universe 25": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
* I've only read the Wikipedia summary, it's not a book I'd enjoy