<p>I'm reading the book "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang and want to share my thoughts on the story "Understand." The main character, a paralyzed man, begins treatment for his condition with injections of hormone K. These injections not only restore his neurons but also create new ones, turning him into an intellectual superhuman. As the plot develops, the government starts hunting him down, he acquires another injection, becomes even smarter, invents his unique super-efficient language, sees the formulas of his thinking, and so on.</p>
<p>Although artificial intelligence is not mentioned in the story, I read it through the lens of singularity. Several interesting points arise:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>How does the superhuman relate to ordinary people (normals)?</strong></li>
<li>Other superhumans appear in the plot, and it’s interesting to observe their behavior, character, and goals (a nod to agents). They realize that <strong>collaboration is more effective than individualism even for superhumans</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>What does a person or AI experience when they see and understand the process of forming their thoughts?</strong> It reminds me of an episode from the series "Westworld," where a robot sees its future words on a tablet in the form of a decision tree. How do you think you would feel with such a tablet?</li>
</ol>
<p>I encountered something similar at a hackathon: late at night, we decided to jot down the next steps in comments and go to sleep. After writing the line "#TODO," the AI assistant Copilot generated text describing the next steps word for word as they were in my head. It felt like the AI was reading my thoughts. It was a very strange experience.</p>
<p>#ai #agi #singularity #books #ted_chiang</p>