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Stef Hutka, PhD's avatar

The masculinization of sci-fi feels tied to rationalist traditions and the objectivist ontology driving much of the AI project, past and present - knowledge comes from reason and logical deduction, rather than lived, embodied experience.

One of the things that is striking to me about Le Guin's work/the women writers of the '60s-'70s is how they align with phenomenology and constructivism - knowledge is situated in context. To your point, the active disengagement we’re seeing feels like a signal that people are hungry for a shift towards this situated approach.

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lou millar-machugh (they/he)'s avatar

Yes it’s absolutely tied to that.. it’s all an extension of the idea that humans are just little robots. That’s definitely my favourite part about Le Guin, and I agree that people desire something more embodied and situated… another project tangentially related I keep thinking about is the Heirloom LLMS design fiction project, which imagines LLMs int he future in the style of a tape recorder that serves records of a certain time/place, with mostly local data built into it.

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Joan Antigone's avatar

You are correct LeGuin is the best. This whole series has made me have more discussion of sci-fi with friends and family hopefully not TOO annoyingly.

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lou millar-machugh (they/he)'s avatar

hahaha i am happy to help fuel this - and i do encourage being annoying about it

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