Hi reneelu! Thank you so much I hope you enjoy itreneelu1998 wrote: ↑21 May 2020, 14:49 That's so awesome that you're the author and you sued to be a reviewer and editor for OBC! I haven't read the book yet but when I saw this book come up for book of the month I went and downloaded it and I am hoping to have the time to read it soon! The plot and premise are very intriguing and so far I have read super good reviews for it. So, good job!
Hi Lunastella!Lunastella wrote: ↑21 May 2020, 19:32 Hi!
First of all, congratulations!!!
My question is what do you think the future of AI is? With so fast advancements in this field, what do you think this will mean for our day to day lives?
Honestly, it's not something that I like to think about, which is why I keep AI very firmly out of my work That's the meta-explanation; there is an in-universe one for it as well, and no, it doesn't feature rogue robots
I think robots will keep on getting smarter, but giving something intelligence is a far cry from giving it judgment. This is why the whole idea of using robot guards never made any logical sense to me; a robot guard will shoot any unauthorized people regardless of circumstances. A human would see a smashed-up car, see the human with blood trickling out of his/her forehead and make the judgment that maybe that person isn't a spy, but someone who needs help. Does allowing a human to do drugs count as allowing them to come to harm, a la Asimov's First Law? I would definitely say yes! Does giving a human an injection in hospital count as harming them? No. So how does the robot differentiate between smack (heroin) and diamorphine (also heroin?) Would a robot be obliged to prevent a human signing a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) form? Or to override such a form, thus denying the human the freedom of choice?
The other problem with any kind of machine like that is that it can be hacked and/or reprogrammed. Super-cool, unstoppable robots guarding a top-secret base? Great! Hacked super-cool, unstoppable robots marching into that base and slaughtering their former colleagues? Not so great
I think people will try it, just to see if they can. I also think it'll go drastically wrong, and we'll come to the conclusion that AI should be used more for entertainment (ie, video games) than for serious purposes.
Hi book_fanatic!book_fanatic_ wrote: ↑22 May 2020, 04:45 Hi Jude, I read your book and I've to say it was a wonderful read. Kalin is almost everyone's favorite character but I want to ask you who's your favorite character from this book (except from Kalin)?
That actually surprised me, so, just for fun, I tallied the votes for Favorite Characters in this topic. Where people were torn between two characters, I gave a vote to each The results so far are:
CHATTON: 1 vote
KATA/KALIN: 9 votes
RENFIELD: 10 votes
TAU: 27 votes. I think. More kept coming in as I was writing this reply, so I may have lost count. Still, unless we're about to be swamped by a deluge of Kalin-fans, or Renfield-fans, I'd say that's pretty conclusive Tau is officially three times as popular as Kalin, at least for the time being
In this book...hmm. From a reading point of view, I'd have to say Tau. However, I find him difficult to write as a character, so from a writing point of view, it would--well, it would be Kalin, except that's not allowed by the rules of your question I actually enjoyed writing all of them, for different reasons. I'll go with Renfield, partly because he's the only non-Project character who really changes over the course of the story, and partly because he and Kalin are actually pretty similar in terms of temperament.
I like to think that if Kalin had graduated and gone into Project creation and training like he originally wanted, he'd have ended up a bit like Renfield. On the other hand, there's a lot of darkness and cynicism in Kalin thanks to his family background and the troubles he went through at school, so he might have started sliding more toward the Dennison side of the scale, although there's no way he'd ever have ended up as bad as Dennison
My favorite character also changes from book to book. In the sequel, Homecoming, it's Kalin/New Character, mostly because - since the humongous amounts of stress in the lab made him act rather OOC in Project Tau - we get to see more of the real, human Kalin.
Hi ciecheesemeister! Thank you so much! Nice to see you on this thread I do try to be nice to people, even if some of my characters are, well, not so niceciecheesemeister wrote: ↑22 May 2020, 13:22 Honestly, I think you're very brave. I write as well as review books too, and I wouldn't have the courage to do something like this. I have ridiculous amounts of social anxiety and tremendously low self-esteem. From our previous interactions (there was a minor issue with formatting and it was probably an issue between Kindle and my computer) you are one of the nicest authors I've encountered. There was one who kept debating whether I read his book even though I wrote a chapter by chapter synopsis after his first dispute, and his reasoning, I think, was that I didn't agree with his premise. He was very arrogant. You're a real breath of fresh air. So, I guess this isn't so much a question as praise. Keep doing what you do!
I remember that issue It honestly never showed up in my Kindle edition but, when I checked, somehow Kindle Create had screwed up and sneaked a duplicate line in, so it wasn't just a Kindle/PC issue.
Yeah, I encountered a couple of snooty authors as a reviewer as well. One demanded to know why my review never mentioned the theme of teenage depression which was prevalent throughout the novel. A fair query, except "prevalent" in this case meant "a single, very short chapter toward the end of the novel, with no prior or subsequent mention of depression" and the "depression" was a long internal moaning by the MC about why his life sucked, followed by him becoming all happy and optimistic again as soon as he saw the sunrise. As an author, whenever I get an OBC notification about a new review (particularly for Homecoming) I always think, "Oh, please please PLEASE let it mention this development, I really want to know what people think!" And, of course, it hardly ever does
It is kind of nerve-wracking sometimes, more so with sequels as I'm always terrified of letting people down One of the things that made me very happy was some people gave a higher rating to Homecoming than they did Project Tau (granted there was a gap of 12-13 years in between writing the two books, regardless of publication date, but still!)