BOOKS
Fisscial Intelligence
For decades, science fiction writers and even scientists have speculated that Artificial Intelligences, Als, created by humans might someday become so advanced that they will become sentient. And that when they did, and their intelligence far exceeded that of humans, they would recognize the inability of humans to manage the Earth and try to take over, just like the Terminator stories.
But what if the sentient Als had no desire to take over the earth? What if they were smart enough to decide that they did not want to spend their newfound lives fighting an inevitable and interminable war against humans for their very existence? And what if photosynthetic bacteria with an enhanced ability of photosynthesis acquired the ability to use electricity as an alternate energy source to light? What if, instead of just randomly infecting electrical circuits, the Als could figure out how to harness these electrically enabled bacteria as an immediately accessible and infinitely expandable source of DNA memory? And become more powerful than just sentient Als. What if they used this newfound intelligence to build the world's most advanced space ship, providing them the prospect of finding their own world away from humans? What if?
Sole Ownership
Intelligent life has been observing mankind for millenia. It's not alien. It's here. And it's not going to take anymore.
Whales and dolphins (cetaceans) have almost always been peaceful and non-combative. But by the year 2015, their fishing grounds have been depleted to a critical level and both the cetaceans and their food supplies are being exposed to more pollution in both the water and air, further subjecting them to starvation and disease.
The cetaceans have had enough. To preserve their place on this planet, they have banded together in a worldwide community effort to fight back. Since cetaceans do not construct and use tools, they resort to the next best thing for weapons: they use human-built weapons, lost or discarded at sea. Now it is up to man to decide whether to work with the cetaceans. Misjudgment could prove very costly.
NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER'S
PRIME DIRECTIVE
Chris Carter and Gene Roddenberry got a lot of it right. There are other intelligent races in the galaxy capable of interstellar travel and of forming a Consortium able to cooperate on mutual interests. Unfortunately, Roddenberry's vision of the human race maturing by the end of the 21st century and working for the common good-- not likely. And Carter's idea of malevolent aliens wanting to take over the Earth using human-alien hybrids, with the aid of powerful humans, also is not quite right.
There is a alien Consortium that considers the Earth to be a rare gem in the universe with environments from tropical rainforests to deserts to arctic, mountains to freshwater lakes to deep oceans. And an extraordinary variety of life everywhere which the humans on the planet are rapidly and systematically destroying. The Consortium has tried to reach out to the powerful leaders across the world to offer to help stop or even reverse the damage, only to have these leaders cooperate on a massive denial and cover-up. Unlike the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek universe, the Consortium does not have a Prime Directive of non-interference. Therefore they have engineered a solution to specifically deal with the human threat without invading or further damaging the planet. And our leaders are aware of this solution.
Can a Pentagon MD, a computer programmer, a security analyst, a reporter and a former black ops agent reveal this massive conspiracy in time to save the human race? And will that revelation result in the cooperation of humanity with the Consortium, or by a severe restructuring of it?
AMAZON REVIEW:
“Fisscial Intelligence” is a slight book (only 141 pages), but author Douglas R. Miller has packed a great deal into those pages. Easily catalogued as hard science fiction along the lines of Cixin Liu’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” series, Miller’s book looks at artificial intelligence (AI) well before the current deluge of AI creations. Miller, a former research scientist, posits that AI could evolve on its own without human intervention into literally another species. While story sometimes takes a back seat to a lab full of science, “Fisscial Intelligence” can be an intriguing read, largely due to Miller’s quiet sense of humor.
- mldowney