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Q1 the begening, i can say this book

Q1 : In your opinion, what is the intelligence ofdeamon ? Is it actually intelligent ? Please explain your position. At the begening, I can say this book is so fascinatingthat it would be difficult for a reader to not interested on its differentideas. With every new chapter, the thrust to dig more and more will increase.

According to the Wikipedia Daemon is “ a computer program that runs a backgroundprocess, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user”. The Daemon by Daniel Suarez’s thriller is an intricated program written by thecomputer gaming genius Mathew Sobol. It took a moment for me to actuallybelieve that Sobol is behind this whole mystery.  Before explaining the nature of deamon intelligence, it is worthto explain the origine and how does works this kind of intelligence. It is important to recall that the daemon is programmed by Sobol to initiate upon hisdeath which takes place at the beginning of the story.

He has died and he wantsto make sure that he leaves behind a surprise for the world- A real game. Hence, he creates a vicious daemon or a computer program in the background ofevery system that has installed his massively popular online multiplayer game. When news of Sobol’s death was published in the Internet, the daemon becomesactive.

He engages a number of people- a computer hacker, news reporter, prisoner he releases from prison. Sobol was always one step ahead of FBI. Itcreates chaos across the world, exploits weaknesses in computer networks anduses them for its own purposes.

Daemon provides a very enthralling look at whatwould happen if computer programs get the power to rule the world and whatwould happen if they try to wipe us out. This book gave my childhood fantasisesnew wings. Intelligence is not a natural of direct intelligencebut it uses a novel way of controlling intelligence of others. Daniel Suarez’snovel Daemon takes up many of the same questions. Instead of examiningan encounter with an alien intelligence of some sort, however, the beingor construct that takes the place of an alien or a god, is the Daemon – “ acomputer program that runs continuously in the background and performsspecified operations at predefined times or in response to certain events”.

Throughout the novel, the Daemon is given neargod-like status by those who all but worship it and demonic status by those whofear and fight it. It is beyond the comprehension of most and it is spoken ofand treated like it is an autonomous agent with an agenda of its own. Eventhose with the knowledge of computer science to grasp what the Daemon is tendto still attribute the events it triggers to the Daemon itself, as if it weresomething to be outsmarted or reasoned with, as if it had wants and needs thatcould be figured out. This reaction to something so seemingly vast is onethat all of the protagonists we have examined this semester have had. Whetherconfronted with a monolith, a Raman ship, a sphere or a planet made of anoceanic brain, some of the main questions have been: “ what does it want?” and” why is it doing this?” The attribution of desire and an intelligence we arecapable of understanding has been one made in nearly every narrative we haveexamined, as if, surely, somehow, we must be able to relate to what is outthere, if we could just find the key: the right code, the right button, theright prayer. This tension in how to connect and understand is atthe heart of Daemon in many ways. The Daemon seems to operate like themonolith, the ship, the sphere, the planet. It acts and lives change, peopledie, people live, the stock market rises, a door opens, a lock turns.

TheDaemon is nothing but a computer program. In many ways, it can be seen morelike Hal or the Raman ship than the monolith, sphere or Solaris—it does what itwas programmed to do. However, unlike Hal, who seems to have someconsciousness, something separate from pure programmed decisions, the Daemon ispurely an exercise in computer code, functioning through a logic tree, albeit ahighly complex one.

The Daemon is programmed to read the news onlinearound the world and trigger certain events. Human agents are then presentedwith certain opportunities. They may choose to do as the Daemon asks, or theymay not. If they do, they often find that there is no way out but by death—butthe first choice is theirs. Between these human agents, who receive theirinstructions based on their choices and the events scanned in the news, and theevents triggered solely by other events that get reported, the Daemon is ableto gain control of the majority of America’s corporations and public life, butonly through those agents and events.  Q2 : is the story of Deamon believable ? Explain your positionWhat fact coming from the book do you consider theleast plausible to actually happen? I asked the same question many times in my life, aswhen I saw some movies, like Terminator, Robot, The Matrix, …They held mespellbound and force me to visualize our future.

Will we ever able to makerobots like this? How will they look? What if they result in a threat tomankind? Will they be like humans? There were some scenarios where I thought itis not possible to occur. According to me, I do not think that only one gamedeveloper, even with several companions, could produce such a mighty tool. Andthat even unnoticed by the company and society. Matthew Sobol would have had toforesee most of the upcoming events to for example film his video sequencescorrectly.

Fair enough after all, the book is only a novel and may have someunrealistic and futuristic proceedings. Second is when Hummer was killingpeople. That was more of intelligent machine behind it.

Moreover, at sometimesit was difficult for me to digest how games can be made this much on the basisof Artificial Intelligence. Game maps are always only a very small area withpredefined properties. I do not think that I can accomplish that individual andadaptive behaviour. It would need true intelligence behind it. That meanseither humans controlling it or a truly intelligent machine behind. Furthermore, I didn’t find any other least plausible thing to actually happen. It is just a smart way of using or exploiting technology which Sobol did hisbest. For example, Daemon got activated after Sobol’s death i.

e. by looking atthe news. And this is not magical at all.

It is just a kind of search with somespecific keywords. Moreover, I believe it is a kind of some hierarchic system, where an order has to be maintained and subparts are highly dependent on somestrict order or there is some feedback system.  To summarize, I found the book a really nice andentertaining lecture. It was fun to read with some interesting views.

I do hopesystem like this will come up one day. Technologies can be boon or bane- theboth things depends upon how humans will use intelligence systems. As world isalready suffering from global warming, deforestation, pollution and the idea ofintelligent machines “ which can think and act on their own” hasscared people. At the end, I would say this world is getting scarier day byday.

Computers already control so much of our lives today. We are more presentin virtual world than a real world. I am not afraid of human zombies but thesecomputer zombies are taking my chill away.

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