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We Think, Therefore We Are
Fifteen original stories about our fear of and fascination with artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence has captured the imaginations of writers, readers, and scientists alike, from Karl Capek?s R.U.R. to Isaac Asimov?s Three Laws of Robotics , from Robby the Robot to The Terminator and The Bicentennial Man , and?of course?Arthur C. Clarke?s Hal 9000.
Now some of the most innovative thinkers in science fiction offer an intriguing variety of tales featuring the many forms of AI, from frightening to funny. These authors confront one of contemporary mankind?s deepest concerns?what do we do when the machines we created evolve beyond us?
Artificial intelligence has captured the imaginations of writers, readers, and scientists alike, from Karl Capek?s R.U.R. to Isaac Asimov?s Three Laws of Robotics , from Robby the Robot to The Terminator and The Bicentennial Man , and?of course?Arthur C. Clarke?s Hal 9000.
Now some of the most innovative thinkers in science fiction offer an intriguing variety of tales featuring the many forms of AI, from frightening to funny. These authors confront one of contemporary mankind?s deepest concerns?what do we do when the machines we created evolve beyond us?
311 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Peter Crowther
194 books40 followersPeter Crowther, born in 1949, is a journalist, anthologist, and the author of many short stories and novels. He is the co-founder of PS Publishing and the editor of Postscripts.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 6, 2011
"Tempest 43" by Stephen Baxter (short story) - 4 stars
A very good story that reverently references Clarke's 2001. An AI aboard a satellite goes amok, allowing a tornado to hit the Earth. Can the mystery be solved? Stephen Baxter writes consistently top-notch SF, and this is another stellar example of his work. Recommended reading!
"The Highway Code" by Brian Stableford (short story) - 4.5 stars
A seasoned veteran SF writer, Stableford produces here a fine homage to Asimov. I thought about quoting the 3 hierarchical tenets of the Highway Code here in this review, but frankly that is one of the joys of reading this superb tale. Highly recommended reading.
"Salvage Rites" by Eric Brown (short story) - 3 stars
This should have been better than it was, but it left me slightly disappointed. The story follows a aging salvage ship captain, who has been mourning his sister's death his entire life, as he quests for the secret of an afterlife. He plans to learn what he needs to know by finding a ship filled with religious adherents who travelled to where no men had gone before...
After reflecting, it seems perhaps that my only complaint is that this story reads a little bit like second rate Star Trek. The characters are interesting, but more could have been developed about the nature of the craft disocovered for salvage. As a novel, perhaps this would have worked better. Check it out if you're an Eric Brown fan.
"The Kamikaze Code" by James Lovegrove (short story) - 3 stars
This has some similarity to the Monty Python skit about the comedian who wrote the funniest joke in the world, and subsequently died laughing. The joke was then turned into a weapon and dropped on Germany. Translators could only see a couple words, however, as they risked injury if they saw even a phrase of the original joke. Thus, a bit of recursive comedy, with a joke about a joke.
And now we have Lovegrove's story about a story. The AI which is a weapon for the government demands original fiction for its own needs, and the prose-writing protagonist discovers the truth and sets about to write a story to end the cycle.
Frankly, this type of story has been done before, so it came across a gimmick that fell a bit flat at the end. The early part of this story was the best part, and a decent premise. Recommended for those who want something a bit weird and sinister.
"Adam Robots" by Adam Roberts (short story) - 4.5 stars
Another story that has been done before is the Adam & Eve scenario with a twist. Here we have it again, but the twist is pretty novel. This is a quick and very satisfying story. Highly recommended.
"Seeds" by Tony Ballantyne (short story) - 4 stars
This gem of a story has great concepts, smoothly executed. I particularly enjoyed the seed bombers planting flowers by projectile released from trains. Linked satisfyingly with the mining of a distant moon, this story makes me want to read more by this author (whom I've otherwise not read before). Recommended reading!
"Lost Places of the Earth" by Stephen Utley (1 star)
The "maparama" (basically a time machine viewer used in the story to provide a "virtual paleolithic experience") was cool, but this story came across as very creepy (in a sick and perverted sense). You can read how aging university academics can use their wiles & professorial perquisites to seduce young aspirants. The consideration of any challenges with ethics or morals is apparently left to the reader to ponder on their own.
"The Chinese Room" by Marly Youmans (short story) - 1 star.
Pointless and confusing, and best avoided. I will have to look up the John Searles reference, as I'm not familiar with the 'Chinese Room' argument and how it refutes artificial intelligence.
"Three Princesses" by Robert Reed (short story) - 2 stars
This is a first for me. I've never before read a Robert Reed story that I didn't enjoy. I found the bizarre "princess" universe contrived, and the story never got beyond the types of observations adults make while in line at Disneyland to see Snow White in costume.
"The New Cyberiad" by Paul di Filippo (short story) - 3 stars
I love the author's joyful use of language, and after the first 4-5 pages, I thought this might be the best story in the book. But then things went a bit wrong. A master wordsmith, di Filippo went too far sometimes (alliteration can be overdone). And the ending fell really flat - surely there could be better ways to end the story without figurativelydropping the reader abruptly off a cliff. But the story is well-written, and wondrously strange (if a bit whimsical), and filled with bizarre ideas, so these offset the flaws mentioned.
Recommended for those who love exploring language and strange new horizons.
"That Laugh" by Patrick O'Leary (short story) - 2 stars
The interview-within-a-story didn't really work for me (I found it to be a bit tedious). And the hints were dropped clumsily - presumably the author wanted the reader to connect them after the story's culmination; for me, however, each such instance gained my immediate attention and thus I was prepared for the ending, and found nothing profound there.
"Alles in Ordnung" by Garry Kilworth (short story) - 2.5 stars
Decent story about an alien invasion in the most rural areas of the world. The intent of the aliens is not what you'd expect, though... To be frank, I had a hard time reconciling the shocker ending with the aliens' goal of decreased entropy, but that was only afterwards, and while reading I found it enjoyable.
"Sweats" by Keith Brooke (short story) - 4 stars
One of the book's best overall stories, this one also had flaws. Flaws in basic editing (spelling mistakes such as using "Phillipines" instead of "Philippines", and others). And flaws in convincing the reader of the plausibility of the legal quandry in which one of the main characters finds himself.
So, a bit of story background, then. A crime was committed while Bartie Davits loaned out his body as a sweat. He didn't commit the crime, and can prove his innocence including the fact that his consciousness was housed elsewhere. Oh, but the entity using Bartie's body may not be simply another person whom the law needs to find, and Bartie may yet be involved.
Very enjoyable - I'd really like to see this expanded to novel length. Recommended reading.
"Some Fast Thinking Needed" by Ian Watson (short story) - 3.5 stars
A story that lives up to the premise envisioned by the anthology's title. This story explores a different type of intelligence in deep space. The ending may be a bit too abstruse for most readers, but the story is jammed pack with futuristic posthuman ideas.
Recommended reading.
"Dragon King of the Eastern Sea" by Chris Roberson (novelette) - 4.5 stars
Interesting enough, and a neat twist in alternate history to bring traditional Chinese culture as the dominant power in mankind's exploration of space. A decent space opera story with realistic physics and a mystery to solve as well. A fitting capstone to this anthology (if arguably a bit too lengthy). I enjoyed it completely.
Highly recommended reading.
A very good story that reverently references Clarke's 2001. An AI aboard a satellite goes amok, allowing a tornado to hit the Earth. Can the mystery be solved? Stephen Baxter writes consistently top-notch SF, and this is another stellar example of his work. Recommended reading!
"The Highway Code" by Brian Stableford (short story) - 4.5 stars
A seasoned veteran SF writer, Stableford produces here a fine homage to Asimov. I thought about quoting the 3 hierarchical tenets of the Highway Code here in this review, but frankly that is one of the joys of reading this superb tale. Highly recommended reading.
"Salvage Rites" by Eric Brown (short story) - 3 stars
This should have been better than it was, but it left me slightly disappointed. The story follows a aging salvage ship captain, who has been mourning his sister's death his entire life, as he quests for the secret of an afterlife. He plans to learn what he needs to know by finding a ship filled with religious adherents who travelled to where no men had gone before...
After reflecting, it seems perhaps that my only complaint is that this story reads a little bit like second rate Star Trek. The characters are interesting, but more could have been developed about the nature of the craft disocovered for salvage. As a novel, perhaps this would have worked better. Check it out if you're an Eric Brown fan.
"The Kamikaze Code" by James Lovegrove (short story) - 3 stars
This has some similarity to the Monty Python skit about the comedian who wrote the funniest joke in the world, and subsequently died laughing. The joke was then turned into a weapon and dropped on Germany. Translators could only see a couple words, however, as they risked injury if they saw even a phrase of the original joke. Thus, a bit of recursive comedy, with a joke about a joke.
And now we have Lovegrove's story about a story. The AI which is a weapon for the government demands original fiction for its own needs, and the prose-writing protagonist discovers the truth and sets about to write a story to end the cycle.
Frankly, this type of story has been done before, so it came across a gimmick that fell a bit flat at the end. The early part of this story was the best part, and a decent premise. Recommended for those who want something a bit weird and sinister.
"Adam Robots" by Adam Roberts (short story) - 4.5 stars
Another story that has been done before is the Adam & Eve scenario with a twist. Here we have it again, but the twist is pretty novel. This is a quick and very satisfying story. Highly recommended.
"Seeds" by Tony Ballantyne (short story) - 4 stars
This gem of a story has great concepts, smoothly executed. I particularly enjoyed the seed bombers planting flowers by projectile released from trains. Linked satisfyingly with the mining of a distant moon, this story makes me want to read more by this author (whom I've otherwise not read before). Recommended reading!
"Lost Places of the Earth" by Stephen Utley (1 star)
The "maparama" (basically a time machine viewer used in the story to provide a "virtual paleolithic experience") was cool, but this story came across as very creepy (in a sick and perverted sense). You can read how aging university academics can use their wiles & professorial perquisites to seduce young aspirants. The consideration of any challenges with ethics or morals is apparently left to the reader to ponder on their own.
"The Chinese Room" by Marly Youmans (short story) - 1 star.
Pointless and confusing, and best avoided. I will have to look up the John Searles reference, as I'm not familiar with the 'Chinese Room' argument and how it refutes artificial intelligence.
"Three Princesses" by Robert Reed (short story) - 2 stars
This is a first for me. I've never before read a Robert Reed story that I didn't enjoy. I found the bizarre "princess" universe contrived, and the story never got beyond the types of observations adults make while in line at Disneyland to see Snow White in costume.
"The New Cyberiad" by Paul di Filippo (short story) - 3 stars
I love the author's joyful use of language, and after the first 4-5 pages, I thought this might be the best story in the book. But then things went a bit wrong. A master wordsmith, di Filippo went too far sometimes (alliteration can be overdone). And the ending fell really flat - surely there could be better ways to end the story without figurativelydropping the reader abruptly off a cliff. But the story is well-written, and wondrously strange (if a bit whimsical), and filled with bizarre ideas, so these offset the flaws mentioned.
Recommended for those who love exploring language and strange new horizons.
"That Laugh" by Patrick O'Leary (short story) - 2 stars
The interview-within-a-story didn't really work for me (I found it to be a bit tedious). And the hints were dropped clumsily - presumably the author wanted the reader to connect them after the story's culmination; for me, however, each such instance gained my immediate attention and thus I was prepared for the ending, and found nothing profound there.
"Alles in Ordnung" by Garry Kilworth (short story) - 2.5 stars
Decent story about an alien invasion in the most rural areas of the world. The intent of the aliens is not what you'd expect, though... To be frank, I had a hard time reconciling the shocker ending with the aliens' goal of decreased entropy, but that was only afterwards, and while reading I found it enjoyable.
"Sweats" by Keith Brooke (short story) - 4 stars
One of the book's best overall stories, this one also had flaws. Flaws in basic editing (spelling mistakes such as using "Phillipines" instead of "Philippines", and others). And flaws in convincing the reader of the plausibility of the legal quandry in which one of the main characters finds himself.
So, a bit of story background, then. A crime was committed while Bartie Davits loaned out his body as a sweat. He didn't commit the crime, and can prove his innocence including the fact that his consciousness was housed elsewhere. Oh, but the entity using Bartie's body may not be simply another person whom the law needs to find, and Bartie may yet be involved.
Very enjoyable - I'd really like to see this expanded to novel length. Recommended reading.
"Some Fast Thinking Needed" by Ian Watson (short story) - 3.5 stars
A story that lives up to the premise envisioned by the anthology's title. This story explores a different type of intelligence in deep space. The ending may be a bit too abstruse for most readers, but the story is jammed pack with futuristic posthuman ideas.
Recommended reading.
"Dragon King of the Eastern Sea" by Chris Roberson (novelette) - 4.5 stars
Interesting enough, and a neat twist in alternate history to bring traditional Chinese culture as the dominant power in mankind's exploration of space. A decent space opera story with realistic physics and a mystery to solve as well. A fitting capstone to this anthology (if arguably a bit too lengthy). I enjoyed it completely.
Highly recommended reading.
January 16, 2013
As usual, I snap anything up involving artificial intelligence. This has been on my list for a while, and I finally got around to acquiring it. We Think, Therefore We Are is exactly what it seems: a collection of stories about AIs, robots, and other posthuman ideas about disembodied consciousness. Fifteen stories from fifteen authors, all with different ideas about what the next centuries might bring us.
For such a long wait, this wasn’t all that impressive a payoff. This is a rather lacklustre collection. I’m used to anthologies coming with short prefaces to each short story introducing the author and maybe saying a few words about the story, so much so that their absence here seemed gaping. The stories themselves have some interesting ideas, but none of them were very fun, enjoyable, or just plain entertaining. (A few came close.)
The first story, Stephen Baxter’s “Tempest 43”, is probably the best the collection has to offer. It concerns an ailing AI on an ageing weather control satellite. The AI actually has a tripartite personality core, and the three personalities have gone to war. Three humans are caught in the middle. Even this story, however, lacks a satisfying climax, because it feels like the AI is doing all the work while the humans just sit around and watch.
I should also mention “Adam Robots” by Adam Roberts. It is definitely an original tale, a riff off the Garden of Eden story with robots instead of humans and a particularly sad twist at the end. Yet it’s representative of the stories here in another way, in that it relies more on clever premises than any deep exploration of what artificial intelligences might be like. None of these stories really made me go, “Oh yeah, I didn’t think about AI that way before,” and that’s what I want to see in such fiction.
Another weakness is the gender balance here: a single woman author among fourteen men. I don’t mean to say that every anthology should have a ratio of women to men approaching 1:1, but in this case the skew is just so noticeable. It would be easier to excuse if each story were a diamond in the rough, but most are merely adequate cubic zirconium.
We Think, Therefore We Are is neither bold nor brilliant. It doesn’t seem to take many risks; rather, it’s as if someone decided that they should collect some mediocre stories about AI, bundle them, and sell them at a profit. Well it worked, but it isn’t exciting, and it isn’t all that fresh.
For such a long wait, this wasn’t all that impressive a payoff. This is a rather lacklustre collection. I’m used to anthologies coming with short prefaces to each short story introducing the author and maybe saying a few words about the story, so much so that their absence here seemed gaping. The stories themselves have some interesting ideas, but none of them were very fun, enjoyable, or just plain entertaining. (A few came close.)
The first story, Stephen Baxter’s “Tempest 43”, is probably the best the collection has to offer. It concerns an ailing AI on an ageing weather control satellite. The AI actually has a tripartite personality core, and the three personalities have gone to war. Three humans are caught in the middle. Even this story, however, lacks a satisfying climax, because it feels like the AI is doing all the work while the humans just sit around and watch.
I should also mention “Adam Robots” by Adam Roberts. It is definitely an original tale, a riff off the Garden of Eden story with robots instead of humans and a particularly sad twist at the end. Yet it’s representative of the stories here in another way, in that it relies more on clever premises than any deep exploration of what artificial intelligences might be like. None of these stories really made me go, “Oh yeah, I didn’t think about AI that way before,” and that’s what I want to see in such fiction.
Another weakness is the gender balance here: a single woman author among fourteen men. I don’t mean to say that every anthology should have a ratio of women to men approaching 1:1, but in this case the skew is just so noticeable. It would be easier to excuse if each story were a diamond in the rough, but most are merely adequate cubic zirconium.
We Think, Therefore We Are is neither bold nor brilliant. It doesn’t seem to take many risks; rather, it’s as if someone decided that they should collect some mediocre stories about AI, bundle them, and sell them at a profit. Well it worked, but it isn’t exciting, and it isn’t all that fresh.
February 20, 2020
I should have listened to some of the other reviewers. This collection of stories ranged from merely interesting to awful. Many did not have the element of AI that the book theme was supposed to be or barely mentioned it.
June 26, 2018
It wasn't bad-bad, I just didn't enjoy any of the stories. Not one in fifteen. Thoroughly blah.
Read
October 1, 2023Very well written story of personal/human inner conflict.
Read
August 2, 2011I love ideas. New concepts. This book has a set of them, sometimes one, sometimes several in each short story. Thankfully none of them are overly pretentious, mostly they are intriguing and at least one downright comedic. I especially liked the self-aware Road Train, travelling the world delivering stuff while carefully trading off conflicting road rules. And the 'master constructors' who got so bored they decided to reinvent humans to create some disorder and fun around the place. Makes you think, which is good.
PS some time after writing this review someone has pointed out that the Master Constructors characters which I liked so much have in fact been 'recycled' from a book by SF genius Stanislaw Lem. Still a good read but I gave Paul Di Filippo more credit than I should have :-)
PS some time after writing this review someone has pointed out that the Master Constructors characters which I liked so much have in fact been 'recycled' from a book by SF genius Stanislaw Lem. Still a good read but I gave Paul Di Filippo more credit than I should have :-)
May 11, 2010
"Dragon King of the Eastern Sea" was good, but it was one of those stories that seemed to go on forever.
"Adam Robots" was prolly my fave of the bunch. It seemed like it would be an inevitable experiment once robotics and AI technology become suitably advanced, but it was the ending that really sold me on the story.
My least favorite was "Sweat." It was an interesting idea--sort of similar to a story in another collection where making copies and backups of oneself was standard practice--but it was poorly executed. I refuse to buy into a story where the criminal and judicial systems are THAT foolish and desperate for citizens to prosecute.
"Adam Robots" was prolly my fave of the bunch. It seemed like it would be an inevitable experiment once robotics and AI technology become suitably advanced, but it was the ending that really sold me on the story.
My least favorite was "Sweat." It was an interesting idea--sort of similar to a story in another collection where making copies and backups of oneself was standard practice--but it was poorly executed. I refuse to buy into a story where the criminal and judicial systems are THAT foolish and desperate for citizens to prosecute.
February 23, 2009
Read from 2/9 to 2/10. I was fairly disappointed in this collection. Too many of the stories didn't really fit the theme, and some of them were downright silly. There were only two stories out of the fifteen that I thought were really worth anything.
Read
August 12, 2009Read a couple of stories, but couldn't get into it as much as the other anthologies. I returned to library, but will probably pick it up at a later date, when I want to read more dense sci-fi.
November 1, 2009
Uneven collection, some good, some not so good, some make no sense. Completed October 31, 2009.
March 2, 2012
Some good, entertaining stories, some so-so stories. I actually enjoyed the preface too, ahem.
July 9, 2012
Great sci-fi
July 5, 2013
A really forgettable collection of short stories. Aside from one with a slight twist to the ending, I can't even remember what they were. Disappointing.
October 29, 2009
Some of the stories are good, some are just riffing off the classics (Asimov, Clarke, Lem, . . .).
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews