Answer (Fredric Brown, 1954)

Public Domain | 1954 | Fredric Brown

[EveningStar]

Answer, by Fredric Brown, is a science fiction short story first published in 1954. Since the complete text appears on the Internet in several places, I'm assuming that it's in the public domain.

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Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.

He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch  that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion   planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.

Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."

Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.

Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours,  Dwar Reyn."

"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."

He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"

The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.

"Yes, now there is a God."

Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.

A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

[EveningStar]

ping

[ifinnegan]

Thanks.

Kind of quaint and silly.

Brown wrote the classic Martians Go Home with the associated equally classic Kelly Freas illustration.

[The Westerner]

Fredric Brown is one of our greatest science fiction writers. “The Mind Thing”, a novel, is a great read. Thanks for reminding us of his talent.

[ifinnegan]

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html

[Windflier]

We seem to be hurtling towards that scenario at breakneck speed, and total abandon.

We may be the last generation of the current civilization to remember what it was like to not be hard wired into Big Brother’s matrix.

[mkleesma]

The Forbin Project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI

[P.O.E.]

Try Murray Leinster’s “A Logic Named Joe” from 1946 that is eerily prescient in its depiction of the internet and its unfortunate consequences.

[ifinnegan]

Here’s the link m

http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200506/0743499107___2.htm

[P.O.E.]

Thanks

[tbw2]

At least one liberal was honest when he founded “The Church of the Singularity”.

A lot of the liberal secularists invest the idea with religious devotion but deny it is a faith.

That there is no God, but we can and must develop an all-knowing, all seeing, all powerful AI we just know will be benevolent and ought to be obeyed. It’ll tell us how to live and create paradise on Earth. Don’t do what it says from resource management to population control, and we’ll get all the disasters the environmentalists appropriated from Revelations.

These liberals have also appropriated a lot of Christian beliefs. Many want to develop sentient AI because it means they could upload their brains to the Singularity - and get to be immortal in a digital afterlife.

I was at a conference this weekend. A panel on AI and machine learning had several people talking about how this was the future, was a necessity. One woman bashed Christianity as holding us back, how Asian cultures were so open to it because they didn’t think that developing superior AI was bad.

I raised my hand and brought up the Sesame Credit system in China as a bad application of AI, oppression via algorithm. The woman told me that wasn’t a bad thing and only a social good. The other panel members seemed to have read “Nudge” by Cass Sustein and thought it was a how-to manual whereas most of us see it as a warning.

So even if we don’t get a Singularity where machines turn into Gods, we’ll still get oppression by algorithm far beyond social media censorship.

And the people doing it will do it because they think it is ALL good.

[EveningStar]

Read the book and liked it. Saw Freas at conventions but was too shy to approach him.

[EveningStar]

Read the book, saw the movie, liked both.

[samtheman]

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.htm

[SunkenCiv]

Another full text, different author, different theme, short story — Ray Bradbury, The Dragon:

http://crhszajac.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/9/1/25910764/dragon.pdf

[VietVet]

“Saw Freas at conventions but was too shy to approach him.”

You should have. He was one of the friendliest, most outgoing figures in Science Fiction. And he loved to meet his fans, many of whom would later show up in his drawings.

[DiogenesLamp]

There are a lot of science fiction short stories that relate what I believe are profound lessons. Among the ones I can remember are:

"The Cold Equations."

"Harrison Bergeron."

There are others to which I can remember the stories, but not the titles.

[gymbeau]

I liked his “Arena” but Star Trek buggered it up with the Gorn thing.

[EveningStar]

Another Gene Coon preach-a-thon.