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... Stephenson coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 classic "Snow Crash", and his 1999 epic "Cryptonomicon" envisioned digital currencies and the encryption needed to make them possible. The prescience of those works, and the cracking yarns he spins, mean he is in demand as both a novelist and thinker.

In the latter capacity he recently participated in what he described a "a panel discussion on AI as part of a private event in New Zealand."

He's since posted his opening remarks from the event, which open by noting understandable anxiety about the sudden arrival of generative AI.

Stephenson suggests remembering that we already share Earth with many non-human intelligences from the animal kingdom and have learned to get along with them.

"We're used to thinking of them as being less intelligent than we are, and that's usually not wrong," he wrote, "but it might be better to think of them as having different sorts of intelligence, because they've evolved to do different things."

His remarks offer ways to categorize non-human intelligences, and he ends up suggesting that the most useful AIs will be like sheepdogs " creatures that can do specific tasks better than a human. He thinks other AIs will be like dragonflies " largely oblivious to humans but doing certain things brilliantly well " while others will be like ravens or crows in that they are aware of humans but don't care about us. ...