undefined

points

[-]

the LLM parallel does hit different on this read multivac says insufficient data across ten trillion years and the whole story is basically if more compute and more data eventually gets you there. what's weird is the story answers yes, not on any timeframe that helps the people asking tho.

feels uncomfortably close to the actual situation where the models keep getting better and the answer keeps being "not yet, ask again later" while the answer is getting ready years late

by waltbosz12 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

I feel like the software running multivac represents something vastly more advanced than today's LLM.

I wonder if Asimov considered multivac to be an ancestor to his positronic robots, or if the two exist in different universes. I don't recall the two ever appearing in the same story.

by Aerolfos7 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

> I wonder if Asimov considered multivac to be an ancestor to his positronic robots, or if the two exist in different universes. I don't recall the two ever appearing in the same story.

I can't remember if the machines in "the evitable conflict" are ever called VACs, they might be. The themes in that story do for sure overlap with the story "Franchise" (which is explicitly multivac).

Anyway the multivac from last question probably isn't the same as the one in franchise anyway, because the franchise multivac is the same one as in "all the troubles of the world", and spoilers, but that particular multivac has other problems than entropy. It could be that they "fixed" it, but at this point the timeline with other short stories doesn't add up.

In any case, the VACs would be instances of positronic brains the way the machines in evitable conflict are, so if anything the robots are the ancestors of multivac and not the other way around.

by waltbosz6 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

The World Co-ordinator in "the evitable conflict" was a positronic robot (not known to the public), but I think you're right that the machines are never identified as either positronic robots or VACs. But iirc, in the Susan Calvin universe (of which "the evitable conflict" is a part), robots were generally illegal on Earth, the that must make the machines in that story non-robots.

I would say the multivac in "Franchise" is the same Mutlivac as "Last Question" and "all the troubles of the world" (one of my favorites). There are no positronic robots in "Franchise", nor the others.

by mercer13 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

maybe 42 was just the end of sequence token...

by IAmBroom12 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

My favorite "explanation" of that answer is that 6*9=42 in base 13.

God's numbering system is "unlucky".

by baq13 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

It only takes understanding the exponential function and some imagination, right? Apparently an uncommon combination of traits in people ;)