February 13, 2023

2023.02.13
One of my favorite books is Greg Egan's "Permutation City" - you can get the kindle version for like $4, and while it's old, it remains one of the most thoughtful speculations about what it might be like to be an uploaded person.

Before the book really gets into its themes of Artificial Realities, the "real world" - close enough to our own to be very recognizable - has a technology that has stuck with me, a really powerful virtual assistant called "Camel's Eye":
Upstairs, in the bedroom that doubled as an office, Maria switched on her terminal and glanced at a summary of the twenty-one items of mail which had arrived since she'd last checked. All were classified as "Junk"; there was nothing from anyone she knew – and nothing remotely like an offer of paid work. Camel's Eye, her screening software, had identified six pleas for donations from charities (all worthy causes, but Maria hardened her heart); five invitations to enter lotteries and competitions; seven retail catalogs (all of which boasted that they'd been tailored to her personality and "current lifestyle requirements" – but Camel's Eye had assessed their contents and found nothing of interest); and three interactives.
and later:
She started again on the letter. After three drafts of the first paragraph – all eliciting the same response from Camel's Eye: You'll hate this when you re-read it later. Trust me. – she finally admitted to herself that she was wasted. She shut down everything and crawled into bed.
With what I've been seeing from ChatGPT, I think we are on the verge of having this technological capability. (Of course, with modern tech, there's always the question of who's interesting is the software truly minding...)

The "real world" on the book had a lot of video conferencing, but projected that often people would prefer to use software reconstructions of themselves as avatars, ala Max Headroom.