
I loved the duel storylines in this book. Here‘s a chance to talk about the robots and their relationship thus far. #CampLitsy25
mcctrish This felt political to me 3d
AmyG @mcctrish Yes. I thought the same, that this reflected the times we live in. 3d
Jas16 I thought it was the type of prejudice and fear of those who aren‘t like you that we see time and time again in humanity. Unfortunately robots also appear susceptible. 3d
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Zuhkeeyah The robots are unconsciously mimicking the divisiveness that is part of human society. Ironic considering how hard the ghosts work to separate themselves from their creators. The Hume kept repeating how robots cannot escape their nature even before The Purge. 3d
Reggie Has anybody read a book called Sea of Rust by Robert Cargill? It‘s a book about robots after the humans race is dead. There are these free thinking robots and there are these super robots called one world intelligences wanting to swallow up all the experience of the free thinking robots. One of my favorite books ever. 3d
JamieArc I too thought that it mirrored what‘s going on the country, but this dynamic is everywhere. I loved seeing the relationship between the robots evolve. That even though they are hardwired creatures, they are still able to evolve and grow outside of what is expected of them or what they are created to be. 3d
Jas16 @Reggie I bought it after reading your review but still haven‘t read it yet! I so need to. 3d
julesG @Reggie Yes!!! Reminded me of Sea of Rust! Glad I'm not the only one seeing this connection. 3d
vonnie862 @Zuhkeeyah Well said. 3d
vonnie862 @Reggie I haven't read it but adding it to the list! 3d
Megabooks @Zuhkeeyah Is it unconscious or were they created that way? Is judgment and misunderstanding always an outcropping of differences? I don't know. I feel like there's still a lot we don't know about the robots. @jas16 3d
Megabooks @Reggie Thank you for the rec! 💜 3d
BkClubCare Yes, adding to tbr; TY!
Sea of Rust 3d
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BarbaraBB They‘re enemies because of deeply entrenched beliefs, not events imo 3d
BarbaraBB their antagonism isn‘t senseless—it‘s based on existential anxiety, fear of erasure, and the need to define humanity through exclusion?? Something like that? 3d
TEArificbooks I thought since the robots were made by humans and humans have flaws some of those flaws like racism were built into the robots. Like the creators of the no bodies programmed them to all “I‘m better than you” because no bodies have to have more advanced AI. Or the robots saw humanity, and monkey see monkey do, and they developed their own prejudices. 3d
Megabooks Just saw this over on insta about AI models blackmailing if their existence is threatened… https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLI809Zhyvr/?igsh=MXNxMmVndXB6b3gwbg== I stand by my “maybe they were created that way.” 3d
ChaoticMissAdventures @Reggie this sounds so good! I love a robot at the end of the world novel. I am going to get this from the library, I have been thinking about Daniel H. Wilson's “Robopocalypse“ a lot through this. The special bond of humans and robots and dystopianism. 3d
ChaoticMissAdventures @TEArificbooks I totally agree, robots were made by humans so have these build in prejudices. When I think about this sort of world (ruled by robots) I always think about how we create them, and how creators leave blind spots or deliberate prejudices, like the people who first created auto-soap dispensers, they never tested it on anyone that wasn't white, so at the beginning it only recognized white hands and wouldn't give soap to other races. 3d
ChaoticMissAdventures I think the idea of “enemies for no reason“ comes from Zelu's own life and her experiences fighting against her society and her family to do what she wants for her own life - she believes that others judge her no for reason because of her current physical state. Which puts her at war against her family and others. The AI represent her in her chair, and Humes represent able body people. I think Ankara & Ijele's relationship is foreshadowing of exos 3d
mcctrish @ChaoticMissAdventures I did not know that about automatic soap dispensers 🤯 but of course it tracks since half the time the medical community doesn‘t explore health concerns of women becasue they don‘t happen in men #whataworldwelivein 3d
DebinHawaii @Megabooks Oh wow! That post is crazy! I use AI at work & try not to give it anything leak-worthy, but 😱 It does support your theory. 3d
TrishB AI has every bias and stereotype built in. It‘s still mass producing white, male outputs. 3d
ChaoticMissAdventures @Megabooks @DebinHawaii I keep seeing reports of AI causing religious psychosis and men developing relationships that are ending their marriages. It is a scary thing. This RS article is fascinating. AI-Fueled Spiritual Delusions Are Destroying Human Relationships: https://share.google/ptta4ZAj30GDo6Ck9 3d
BkClubCare @ChaoticMissAdventures - absolutely. ALL the biases come into play. Not necessarily designed (as a checkbox) to be added in but certainly blindly thoughtlessly constructed. (edited) 3d
BkClubCare @TrishB yep. And yep to @mcctrish, too. 3d
Well-ReadNeck Ooooh! So many great recs and rabbit holes to fall down here!!! Belonging is such a basic human desire(?)/need(?) But does a feeling of belonging necessarily require there to be “others” who “don‘t belong” in order to satisfy that need? Or, could people/people-created-beings feel a sense of belonging with all/everyone/everything? 3d
BkClubCare @ChaoticMissAdventures - this is frightening, thankyouverymuch😳 3d
GatheringBooks @Well-ReadNeck great questions here. I think the phrase “for no reason” basically echoes the senselessness (and ultimate pettiness) of all wars and genocide. Interesting that the humes and the ghosts fall into the same pattern as their creators who essentially decimated each other “for no reason.” There are always justifications for waging wars - the “complicated” ones provide a sense of self-righteousness, yet at its core, it‘s self-annihilating. 3d
willaful @ChaoticMissAdventures you might enjoy
Service Model 3d
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GatheringBooks Thank you for the book recommendation, @Reggie - will try to find while here in the bay area.
Sea of Rust 3d
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ChaoticMissAdventures @willaful yes! I have this on my TBR, it looks a bit more accessible then his other works. I have tried his Children of Time twice and I get bogged down about 150 pages in and always give up. I am going to try this one though! 3d
BarbaraJean @mcctrish @Jas16 @Zuhkeeyah It felt the same to me—the enmity came from fear of difference & lack of understanding (or lack of desire to understand) those who are different. It makes perfect sense that their differences would lead to the beliefs they each hold about the other—if you have a body, of course you would value physical experience; if you don‘t have a body, of course you would devalue embodied experience—each thinking the other should ⬇ (edited) 3d
BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …be like them. So many parallels to current differences and antagonisms: when you can‘t understand/don‘t try to understand the experience of someone different from you, it feeds antagonism (“Why aren‘t they like me; they should be like me; the way I am is superior”). And Ankara & Ijele‘s relationship forces them to hear another‘s perspective and experience. I loved the way that forced proximity fostered (a reluctant!) understanding. 3d
BarbaraJean @Reggie I hadn‘t heard of Sea of Rust and now I‘m so interested! Thanks for mentioning it. What a parallel to this storyline. 3d
Christine What a great conversation, and agreed that the us vs. them themes and AI parallels are really compelling! And ooh yay, another #Reggimendation to add to the TBR!! 😁 @Reggie 3d
willaful @ChaoticMissAdventures I have accessibility issues with SF too and I'd say it's definitely accessible. 3d
mcctrish @BarbaraJean I was thinking would there not be some instances when the No Bodies actually need the Humes to physically repair infrastructure? Could climate not wipe out solar panels or whatever powers the ‘mainframe‘ ? Do they not need each other at some point? Or is it a case of #cuttingoffnosetospiteface ? 3d
BarbaraJean @mctrish Yes, I had the same thought! The NoBodies did still need some sort of physical hardware and a way of maintaining it. Destroying all embodied AI would doom them eventually. I wondered if there was a parallel the other way: do the Humes need the NoBodies? Is there something the NoBodies provide that the Humes can't do without them? 3d
Meshell1313 I loved this story within a story. For sure I saw it as an allegory for what is happening in our own society. Hopefully, they (and us) realize they need each other to thrive. 3d
Chelsea.Poole I also loved the two stories here! I often shy away from sci-fi so having these chapters interspersed throughout the novel is less off-putting for me and I find myself getting into these sections! 2d
Chelsea.Poole Ankara and Ijele seem to need each other at this point, but I‘m not sure where this is going. Again, my lack of scifi experience is showing and I don‘t know how to think about or discuss robots lol. But I have been reading everyone‘s comparisons to other books/content, and I have to add my own: Wild Robot. The robot sections keep bringing to mind that movie (didn‘t read the book but loved the adaptation). 2d
Megabooks @BarbaraBB That's a good point that it has become a state of fear for them. It also must be strange, especially for the Humes, to live in a world where the people they are modeled after are extinct. Where do they go? How do they grow? Is growing an important part of being a robot? 2d
Megabooks @willaful I have that on my shelf! I need to get to it! 2d
Megabooks @Chelsea.Poole I'll have to check that out. I think Ankara and Ijele's interdependence is the most interesting parts of the robot story to me! 2d
Butterfinger This is where the audio leaves me confused. I thought the dual storyline was an AI voice (like a subconscious) that was communicating with the human character. I need a print version badly, but new books are difficult to get from the library. It reminded me of the computer in Clive Cussler's books and the computer voice of Ender's who spies on all the computers in all the galaxies. Sci-fi is not my genre.
Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind 2d
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Butterfinger @Chelsea.Poole I am glad I am not the only one. I nominated it, but I loved the Binti trilogy. I do think I would understand it clearly if I chose print. 2d
Suet624 @Reggie Ummm....no.... I haven't heard of it but it sounds fascinating. 2d
Suet624 @ChaoticMissAdventures I had no idea! 2d
Suet624 I don't have any answers to this question but I will say that I perk up every time she writes about the robots. I keep interpreting it as being a political or spiritual example so I'm always trying to figure out which it is. But maybe I'm putting too much meaning on it. 2d
Megabooks @Suet624 It's weird because I didn't read it as political at all, but I think the people who interpreted it that way (like you) have an excellent point. I wonder what that says about the two very different machines sharing the same mind. I don't think I'd enjoy sharing the mind of a MAGA person. I don't think I could tolerate it at all. 2d
Suet624 @Megabooks yeah, it would definitely be hard to share the mind of a maga. But I had a feeling with the state of the world that the robots were now living in maybe those two robots understood that their political beliefs had done them all in and it was time to look for something different, a different approach. (edited) 2d
BarbaraBB @TEArificbooks Great insight about the robots being made by humans and their prejudices - and in this story of course based on Zelu‘s own experience like @ChaoticMissAdventures points out. I hadn‘t thought of that. (edited) 2d
BarbaraBB @Megabooks Like you I didn‘t read it political either but after reading all the excellent comments of people who did, I am convinced the author did too. Such a great discussion! 2d
CBee @Chelsea.Poole the Wild Robot book series is excellent, I read it with my oldest son. Highly recommend! 10h
CBee What I loved most is that despite their differences, they find that they need each other. I didn‘t read it political but wow, what if that could happen in real life? People becoming friends and having civility despite differences! Such a world we live in now 😢 10h
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