Post by auntym on Sept 7, 2011 11:32:42 GMT -6
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/communion-author-whitley-strieber_n_943681.html
Whitley Strieber, 'Communion' Author, Describes Bizarre Encounter With Mystery Man[/color]
by Lee Speigel
9/7/11
Is there more than one physical universe? Why is Earth's climate changing so suddenly? At what point will intelligent machines pose a threat to the men and women who invent them, not to mention the rest of humanity?
Many forward-thinking writers have pondered these questions. But none has approached them quite like Whitley Strieber, who says many of his ideas were formed after a mysterious stranger visited him in a hotel room in the middle of the night in 1998.
Strieber is the internationally best-selling author of numerous books that have been made into feature films, including the New York Times No. 1 non-fiction bestseller "Communion" (his account of a close encounter with what he calls intelligent non-humans), "The Wolfen" and "The Hunger."
In the early morning of June 6, 1998, Strieber was asleep in his room at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto when there was a knock at the door.
"I got up to open the door, thinking it was the room service waiter. It was not. It was a man I described as about 5 and a half feet tall, older-looking, like someone in his 70s. He wore dark-colored clothing, a turtleneck and charcoal slacks," Strieber told The Huffington Post.
Strieber's unannounced visitor stayed nearly an hour and never sat down or walked around -- he stood, motionless, by the window.
As the stranger spoke, Strieber took notes, eventually privately publishing the first edition of his book, "The Key," two years later, in 2000.
Strieber's visitor spoke about science and ethics, and when the author asked about machines, the stranger replied: "An intelligent machine will always seek to redesign itself to become more intelligent, for it quickly sees that its intelligence is its means of survival.
"At some point, it will become intelligent enough to notice that it is not self-aware. If you create a machine as intelligent as yourselves, it will end by being more intelligent."
CONTINUE READING: www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/communion-author-whitley-strieber_n_943681.html
Whitley Strieber, 'Communion' Author, Describes Bizarre Encounter With Mystery Man[/color]
by Lee Speigel
9/7/11
Is there more than one physical universe? Why is Earth's climate changing so suddenly? At what point will intelligent machines pose a threat to the men and women who invent them, not to mention the rest of humanity?
Many forward-thinking writers have pondered these questions. But none has approached them quite like Whitley Strieber, who says many of his ideas were formed after a mysterious stranger visited him in a hotel room in the middle of the night in 1998.
Strieber is the internationally best-selling author of numerous books that have been made into feature films, including the New York Times No. 1 non-fiction bestseller "Communion" (his account of a close encounter with what he calls intelligent non-humans), "The Wolfen" and "The Hunger."
In the early morning of June 6, 1998, Strieber was asleep in his room at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto when there was a knock at the door.
"I got up to open the door, thinking it was the room service waiter. It was not. It was a man I described as about 5 and a half feet tall, older-looking, like someone in his 70s. He wore dark-colored clothing, a turtleneck and charcoal slacks," Strieber told The Huffington Post.
Strieber's unannounced visitor stayed nearly an hour and never sat down or walked around -- he stood, motionless, by the window.
As the stranger spoke, Strieber took notes, eventually privately publishing the first edition of his book, "The Key," two years later, in 2000.
Strieber's visitor spoke about science and ethics, and when the author asked about machines, the stranger replied: "An intelligent machine will always seek to redesign itself to become more intelligent, for it quickly sees that its intelligence is its means of survival.
"At some point, it will become intelligent enough to notice that it is not self-aware. If you create a machine as intelligent as yourselves, it will end by being more intelligent."
CONTINUE READING: www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/communion-author-whitley-strieber_n_943681.html