At Minicon 2019, I attended a number of fantastic panels and took some notes at most of them. These notes reflect my thoughts as the panelists were speaking, and may not align with what the panelists meant to say.

Rites of Passages Fae Style

A rite of passage is a ceremony of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It often comes with a significant change of status. Who are the Fae? How do the Fae go about their rituals, and are we in any danger just by discussing it? Rite of passage stories in which faeries feature prominently are often female-centric. Why?
Jane Yolen, Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer

Various rite of passage stories:

• Baba Yaga

• Pan’s Labyrinth

• The Goblin King

• East of the Sun, West of the Moon, South of the North Wind

The rites of passage are the women going into a dark place and coming out differently. But why are fairy tales so mean (misogynistic)? There is a pattern of sin, suffer, and repeat, like in Hans Christian Anderson tales. There is a distinct difference in how men and women are treated in fairy tales - look into the Campbellian Archetypes or watch Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on The Hero’s Journey.

The difference between a fairy tale and folk tale was brought up - I didn’t write it down, but I found a site that gave a succinct explanation:

• Folk tales are the traditional beliefs, practices, lessons, legends and tales of a culture or of a people passed down orally through stories.

• Fairy tales are fanciful and imaginary stories about people, fairies, animals or things who have magical powers.

I made a note to myself to look up Carter Hall and Lana by Dare Wright, but I can’t figure out the context. Hm.

23 and Us: The Social Implications of DNA Testing

Yes, I already wrote about this, as I was on this panel. But I forgot to look at my notes while I was writing about it, and have a few things to add! Oops.

I made a note to myself questioning what a relationship is. Many discussions about genealogy and familial bonding reflect EuroAmericentric views of monogamous heterocisnormativty, but ignores situations where grandparents raise children, where the siblings of the parents are also the parents, step-families, friends intentionally choosing to have children but not entering a romantic relationship, and a myriad of other types of relationships. There are many cultures and societies in the world, and just looking at DNA markers does not reflect who you are.

Some humans happen to be chimeras and typically don’t know it unless something causes them to find out; this can cause interesting (and frustrating) situations. For example, in 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied child support because testing showed that she was not the mother of her children.

There is plenty of crap science in law enforcement that can influence results - see Making a Murderer and how that got false confessions out of innocent people. But the drive to keep policing going can also create false links in scientific research - for example, back in the 1960s & 1970s, research scientists were trying to link violent crime to the so-called “supermale” (which doesn’t exist - like gender, sex is a construct). The research methods used were highly flawed and were later discredited - there is a fascinating Vox report on this (content warning: mention of rape). Also, DNA evidence isn’t foolproof - incomplete samples and contamination can give false results - there is an Adam Ruins Everything segment about it.

There are other positives to DNA testing, of course; for example, the Innocence Project has been using DNA evidence to help get wrongfully convicted persons released from prison.

A few things that we (the panelists) have discovered since the panel:

• There’s an insurance company called YouSurance that markets wanting to use DNA testing.

• Genetic Nondiscrimination Act that was passed back in 2008.

• The first case to use Family Tree Forensics has gone to trial.

• Should cops need a warrant to dig around your family tree?

• Genealogy sites give law enforcement a new DNA sleuthing tool, but the battle over privacy looms.

• From DNA to Diagnosis: Healthcare Triage Podcast

• Search warrant overrides 1M users’ choice not to share DNA with cops

I also left a note to myself asking “what is a person?” It’s an ambiguous concept that should be a post of its own, and so I’m going to leave it hanging here for a later time. But please, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts. What is a person?

Artificial Intelligence Best Practices—What do AI’s want?

‘OK Google, tell me why humans should be afraid of Artificial Intelligence.’ In 1951, the year of the first rudimentary chess program and neural network, Alan Turing predicted that machines would ‘outstrip our feeble powers’ and ‘take control.’ In 1965, Turing’s colleague Irving Good posited that devices more intelligent than humans could design devices more intelligent than themselves, ad infinitum: ‘Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.’ What can we do to minimize the chances that our robots and computers turn against humanity or enslave us for our own good? Is it possible to create a free-willed intelligence that finds humanity likeable? What will Artificial Intelligence look like and what will it want?
Sharon Kahn (m), Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Eleanor Arnason, Shaun Jamison

What is sentience? Well, I guess that also ties back to the earlier question “what is a person?” Is it tool making? Birds have tools. Other hominids have tools. Are they sentient? Are we sentient? Is it because we can think? Or at least, we think we can think, anyway. The brain is the most important organ, according to the brain.
We don’t actually know what other animals are thinking. At all. We have no sense of the emotions or self-awareness of other animals - we’re only putting our sense of thought on their actions. Hell, we don’t know what each other are thinking, either - we have language, and so we can ask each other what we are thinking and hope for a truthful answer. We can’t tell animals to respond to questions about self-awareness, but we can program machines to respond to questions about self-awareness.
And what is self-awareness? Is it a fear of death? It is believed by some that Koko the Gorilla was possibly aware of the concept of death. Crows do murder investigations. Are they self-aware? As a note - apparently, chimps and bonobos use a similar sign language that they may have picked up from Koko.

Our sense of consciousness and self is intrinsically tied to having a body - we’ve often described self-awareness as being aware of our bodies, even though not all animals use senses the way that we do. But then would AIs be aware and conscious in the same way? Or a different way? There is an interesting storyline in the webcomic Questionable Content where one of the AI characters has to get a new body. They’re still self-aware while disembodied, and they’re self-aware in their new body.

Machines and humans learn differently. Would young AI go to school with human children? Would they even want to, and what would be the benefit of it? AI are already very sophisticated and are becoming more so every day. AI can even teach themselves to a degree, and there are creative and semi-creative AI out there - see Emily Howell as an example of a creative AI, and look up journalist AI for semi-creative AI. Also, check out Humans Need Not Apply to get a feel for how a potential future with increasingly sophisticated robots may affect us.

For the most part, machines and computer programs don’t currently have rights. So if an AI doesn’t have rights over creative work, and the person running the AI doesn’t have the rights over what the AI does, then we could end up in a situation that could end up in a situation similar to Naruto the crested macaque and the selfie copyright dispute. If an AI is somehow declared sentient, or even near-sentient, could the work from an AI be considered public domain, or could the AI be the copyright holder of its own work, or will the person running the AI have the rights?
Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager both tried to tackle this in their own ways with the episodes “The Measure of a Man” (TNG S2E09) and “Author, Author” (VOY S7E20). Though these episodes take place in the far future, here in the present day we have yet to have universal human rights, and it crops up in unusual ways sometimes: Saudi Arabia grants robot rights that women there don’t have. Of all of the things that I expected to happen in the world of AI, that seriously was not one of them.

Would an AI gain emotions? What are we teaching AI? We did accidentally make an AI that became a Nazi once. Or was it twice? Either way, humans are the greatest enemy to AI, and that could cause trouble if an AI did have the capacity to have emotions. And if an AI did have emotions, would it necessarily have human emotions? Emotions aren’t the only basis for self-motivation, though we do use self-motivation as a basis for determining sentience - like the self-motivation to stay alive. But then robots wouldn’t necessarily have the same need to have a fear of death as we do, as they can be uploaded into new chassis - see again Questionable Content. There is also an episode of Futurama that deals with Bender not being able to go into a new body and having a “limited” lifespan. However, us being humans, we see mortality as a death of a body - the military has bomb-detecting robots that soldiers have begun to anthropomorphize (which I totally get), even though the hard drive could be put into a new body.
But would robot emotions be like human emotions? Would robot emotions have to be like human emotions? Perhaps they would have to a Robot Mythology so that they can fear robo-death or robo-pain. Imagine Robot Mythology and comment below! Dust has great short films about AI, including this one about Robot Mythology. Plus, the story “Damage” by David Levine was recommended, which is related to this.

A Reverse Turing Test. I don’t remember if this is a Futurama reference or if a person failed it while talking to someone in a call center. “Is the puppy mechanical in any way?” I have had many people think that I am an AI when I worked in call centers and I had to convince them that I am not a computer program. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Would I pass the Voight-Kampff test? Granted, it’s not necessarily necessary for an AI to pass the Turing Test, either, for most things - Isaac Arthur has many videos about Artificial Intelligence.
In opposition to the possibility of fearing death, would AI have a will to live? CollegeHumor made a short, “If Google Was A Guy”. Would this sort of life eliminate an AI’s will to live? I mean, there’s more. But say a robot was running low on energy - would it be worried about running low on energy before it can get to a charging port? Will it be motivated to get itself to a charging hub before it shuts off?

Should we be afraid of AI? Humans are horrible, after all. The people who run large corporations have so much power already, so what more harm can AI do to us? Are we just putting our biases onto AI, making it that we are fearing ourselves with a veneer of AI covering the mirror?

I’m not afraid of AI. Are you? Please leave a comment with why or why not!

Fanfic Writing Is Writing.

Many People write Fanfic, including some pros. What’s fun about writing in an established universe? What does a writer get from the experience that’s different than other writing styles? When does an author decide to file off the serial numbers and send it off to the publisher?
Katie Clapham (m), Ruth Berman, Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Peg Kerr

This panel told me something that I wish, I truly wish, I was told when I was a small child - that writing fanfiction is okay and it can be used to learn how to write. When I was growing up, a lot of my art and writing was stunted because I was told that nothing I created was original. I wasn’t given the support that I needed so that I could learn how to improve on the stories that I was trying to put together. Most of my early attempts were retellings or combinations of other stories that I had heard or watched. I was still in the learning stage - learning how to construct stories. Those were my early attempts at fanfiction, and I was never shown what I was doing right; all I received was criticism. Young Justin, like most people, easily shut down, and it takes a long time to build back up. This panel made me want to cry, because Young Justin really needed to hear that it was a good start, and this panel said that.

A lot of King Arthur tales were fanfiction; for example, the story of Lancelot. Fanfiction is a writing device that has existed throughout history, and will continue to exist. It helps us learn to write, it helps give a framework to build new ideas off of, it leads people to fandom, and it helps people become interested in great art. If it wasn’t for fanfiction, we wouldn’t have the great Hamlet Quintology!

• Hamlet

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

• Hamlet 2

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead

Can a writer write fanfic of their own work? Yes - for example, writing fanfic of own characters, slashfic of own characters in an Alternate Universe.

John Milton wrote Bible fanfic, Paradise Lost, and it has become fanon (fan canon). It is but one example of how fanfic can become supplemental canon or become extracanonical, either by using its own or the original characters. And speaking of Biblical fanfic, the Christian Bible has councils of bishops deciding what is canonical and what is not, and then there is the King James Version. Biblical canon is complex.

Tolkien couldn’t make up his mind on details - could that be considered fanfiction of his own work? He had stated in his letters that he wanted to create a mythology for England - a “subcreation”. That created a revered world to play in, and many people have written their own fanfics that have become new literary works.

The Marvel What If…? series blurs the line between fanfiction and not.

Pride & Prejudice is now public domain, and has spawned new works:

• Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

• Pride & Prometheus

It helps understanding Copyright Law. If only the circle of rights were more forgiving.

There is an Old Man and the Sea and Harry Potter crossover fanfic out there.

Vonda McIntyre and Lois Bujold started out as fanfic writers, I’m told.

The character of Sherlock Holmes is said to be fanfiction of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq, and the real life Joseph Bell.

Ms. Marvel writes fanfic. But who does Loki ‘ship?

Some time ago, there was a post on Reddit about a D&D club at a school. This club had a member who didn’t know certain English phrases, and they found a way to help her learn more English by having Spanish be the Elven language. One of the things about fanfiction is that it can take these events and apply them to established fictional worlds.

Fanfic is not the place for harsh critique - that’s what beta readers are for. Especially when dealing with young people - young people can easily see what they did wrong. People in general easily close down when receiving criticism. People need to be shown what is done right so that they can learn and develop it. Don’t be brutal - be compassionate, clever, insightful. Uplift and empower!

It’s NaNoWriMo time again, all! That means that I’ll either be posting a lot more than usual, or a lot less than usual. It really depends on where my fancy takes me as I alternate between working on stories and working on blog posts. But I will be writing at least a little bit every day, which is the whole point of this. Get the creative juices flowing and having fun! Feel free to follow along with me here: https://www.nanowrimo.org/participants/justin-grays

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