Friday 7 September 2012

Guest Post: John Hex Carter

Guest post by John Hex Carter, author of new Alan Turing book: 'What it means to Exist':


In Florida, there is a book being written called Alan. With the subheading of “a book about what it means to exist,” Alan is about the first artificially intelligent entity as it evolves from a command prompt to a fully autonomous robot. The story follows the little robot, named Alan, as it strives to find out where it belongs in this great big world. Not to give it away, but, as you can probably guess, the book ends with little Alan actually having the Turing Test done upon it. Talking about Alan Turing, the test, artificial intelligence, and existentialism, Alan is meant to be a book that’ll entertain, educate, and provoke thought.


If this is something you’d like to pick up, it’s unfortunately not available for purchase yet, but the author, John Hex Carter, is orchestrating a Kickstarter to self-publish the book. He has made the first three chapters available here, if you’d like a sneak peek. The project has already made its modest goal of $500 within five hours of launching the project and fifteen days after launch, it had broken $2000. Carter is still looking for more support. If the project breaks $3000, a regional book tour will be coordinated early next year to promote the book. All details can be found on the Kickstarter page.

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