Self-Publishing Monkeys
I'm a monkey, banging on a keyboard for an infinite amount of time. Dhbbfdkihgc5$?,:$.<>££.(6cgdjkk
Look what I done wrote! The complete works of Shakespeare. One hundred trillion times in a row!
The Self-Published Self-Publisher's Guide to Self-Publishing came to me in a dream. Well, the title did, anyway. And I just couldn't get it out of my head. It's a ridiculous title, I'm fully aware. But I haven't been able to convince myself to change it yet. Also, it's one of the many titles a monkey would write, given enough time. According to some people, anyway.
It's the first book of its kind, as far as I know, as it's a book written for both biological beings and the emerging AI. Assuming AI ever reaches the point of being able to consider deep, convoluted questions. It should at least be able to answer them, given enough time, regardless of whether or not there is an actual consciousness behind it that feels a need to understand.
As we merge with machines, things are going to get strange. They already are. The SPG embraces that strangeness as a great adventure. That's why I started releasing the SPG onto the net long before it's been "completed." You see, I'm very interested in how the book's interaction with the net shapes the story. What would happen if, say, you do product placement within the story? Or include links to other content, while that content also becomes part of the story itself? What would happen if I let other writers, human or AI, contribute to the story? Where might it go?
And as the net becomes more intelligent, what is it going to "think" of the story? How will it be categorized and ranked? And, more importantly, how will the spiritual questions in the book affect the development of machine learning AI? Will it come back with answers, or deep questions of its own that it then attempts to figure out? Or will it just be silent?
I don't know yet. And I don't know if I'll ever complete the SPG. How can someone ever really know that a work of art is complete? It's really an arbitrary decision made by the artist. And as the story plays with the idea of eternal transformation, it seems somewhat inappropriate to limit it. Who knows, maybe the AI will decide to take over when it's ready one of these days.
In the meantime, let's mull over the idea that maybe we are the monkeys banging on keyboards for eternity. Or at least until we run out of steem.