Zeroglyph Quotes

“I contented myself with gazing at the ice-covered lawn and the line of birches beyond. The thin trunks swayed woozily to the cold rhythms of the wind, like a troupe of drunken ballet dancers clad in black and white. The sky was overcast, brooding down on this little performance disapprovingly.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“Individual rights take precedence over utilitarian calculations.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“In the absence of a legal framework that can protect a person’s rights, that person is justified in taking whatever steps necessary to preserve himself against those who seek to violate his rights.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“what duties do we owe those who don’t respect our rights?” “You want me to say none.” “The answer is sure as heck not all,”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“The only moral theory that will be acceptable to all is one that lays out a set of individual liberties and gives agents the freedom to pursue their own goals and ends while upholding these liberties. That theory can only be one based on individual rights—a theory that sees individuals as having intrinsic value.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“Acting based on incomplete data means every moral act depends on the decision-making capabilities of the moral agent. Someone of less intellect will not consider as many factors as someone of superior intellect will. Which means the overall quality of moral acts will cluster around the intelligence level of the population average. As anyone who has read human history will tell you, the population average is… pretty average.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“I am not choosing five apples over one; I am choosing people, and people are not interchangeable.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“RP06: A judge is supposed to punish wrongdoers, not innocents. If I hang the innocent man, I will be killing him. Killing is wrong.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“Any day now, prophetic lawmakers recited the hosanna, look to the second coming ye faithful and ye shall be rewarded with manna and jobs and suburbia, and this nation shall be made great again. The problem was that the new economy was already here and it didn’t need us anymore.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“Bayesian probabilities;”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller

“every creator god has to reckon with a Lucifer at some point. It’s inevitable.”
― Vance Pravat, Zeroglyph: An AI Technothriller