J. Craig Wheeler

Twenty-odd years ago, my son, Rob, and I wrote a screenplay based on my novel, The Krone Experiment. Rob made it into a full length, microbudget film. One of the best experiences of my life was watching the enthusiastic volunteer film crew turn my ideas into a movie. The film did not go anywhere at the time. One of the fantasies I harbor is that someday, somehow, I will strike a deal to remake the film with a proper budget, maybe with a streaming service. Last December, I listed the project with an online outfit called The Blacklist that makes screenplays available to professionals. I recently got the faintest whiff of interest from a young graduate of a film production school. That led me to wonder if my rights were properly protected. That, in turn, led me to wonder whether it is worth my while to set up a limited liability corporation, LLC, to protect and pass down the rights to my books and the screenplay. On June 23, my sons and I had an hour long Zoom call with a friend, a lawyer who handles such things. We decided that my current meager book income is too small to warrant such a step. My will is probably adequate, and if lightning should strike, we can cobble up an LLC in a couple of weeks.

I griped in a previous blog (#15) about my Prometheus publicist leaving and not hearing who her replacement would be. After another couple of weeks, I checked the Marketing and Sales information that Prometheus had originally provided to me and confirmed that after a certain interval, my book would be put on a backlist. I wrote to my agent, Regina Ryan, asking her opinion of the matter on June 24 and got a typical honest blunt reply. She was not sure about the formalities of a backlist but said that publishers often give books about three months to see whether they are going to flourish. We have not sold out the initial hardback print run - no one's idea of flourishing - a disappointment to me and those who supported and depended on me. I may have been lucky to get six month's support from Prometheus. On July 12, I realized that the Prometheus link to "Path" had been broken or removed. It turns out you can find the publisher's link to the book by tunneling into the Globe Pequot web site, but that means that the QR code on the special business cards that I have been handing out don't link directly to the book.

I had another idea to promote the book, a local TV appearance, and wrote to my editor again on July 14 about publicist assistance. The mail bounced. I then wrote to Regina and got a revised email, higher up the corporate structure at Globe Pequot rather than the Prometheus imprint, and wrote again on July 15. No response yet. I may forge ahead on my own.

In late June, I nominated myself and The Path to Singularity for a Chambliss Writing Award sponsored by the American Astronomical Society. I shared the award with my friend and colleague David Branch in 2017 for our book Supernova Explosions. The AAS is looking primarily for textbooks and may not want to duplicate an award. We'll see. On July 17, David and I got a note from our editor at Springer Verlag saying that the book was still doing remarkably well for a technical book of its sort and inquiring whether we might do a second edition. It's not that clear to either of us that much has changed in the intervening eight years.

I attended a webinar on June 26 presented by futurist Peter Diamandis on research progress on extending lifespans. Some have the goal of living long enough to live forever as aging is "cured." There were 785 people on the call. I was a little naughty. After Diamandis gave his pitch I wrote in the chat "In case you are interested, in The Path to Singularity (I embedded the link), I discuss some of the possible ramifications of extending lifetimes." At least one person DM'd me that she would buy my book.

I've been working on the logistics of delivering a keynote address to Tory Technologies in Houston in August (see also #15). Tory wanted to buy some books to hand to certain people and arrange to sell books to others that I could sign at the symposium. My cousin-in-law, naturalist and author Bob Pyle, told me that he tries to arrange local independent bookstores to handle book sales at his signings. I contacted one Houston bookstore that explicitly advertised that they handled such sales opportunities, but they declared they were already booked in August. I contacted a Houston Barnes and Noble but after a couple of days I had the insight to ask the first bookstore for another suggestion and they referred me to Good on Paper, which embraced my suggestion enthusiastically. If things work out, I'll do a book signing at their store after doing the Tory gig. I spoke to the CEO and CTO of Tory on a Zoom call. We agreed I would participate in a panel discussion as well as giving the keynote address and reviewed the coordination with Good on Paper for book sales. I've drafted my keynote in PowerPoint but still need to think about the panel discussion.

Bob Pyle recently read The Krone Experiment and the sequel, Krone Ascending (both available on Amazon). Then he read The Krone Experiment again and sent compliments which I deeply appreciated from an accomplished wordsmith. He also had a brilliant suggestion for a plot device for the third book in the series, Krone Triumphant, which remains on my bucket list.

I have a friend, John Tonetti, whom I met when he first serviced our rudimentary solar-boosted water heater 30 years ago. Shameless shill that I am, I had told him about "Path" on one of his recent service visits. On June 30, he emailed to say that he had listened to an Audible copy of the book as he drove his service truck, which he found to be "as stimulating, fascinating, and humiliating an experience as I have had since my days in Social Theory Seminars at the UT Austin Graduate School of Sociology some fifty years ago." He then listened again sitting at his desk and taking notes. I am deeply flattered.

In my previous blog on my Active April, I omitted one event that I thought was worth its own post.

On Friday, 4/11/25, I attended a session of the Mountains and Plains Independent Book Sellers Association (MPIBA) SpringCon 2025 that my Prometheus publicist, Chloé Hummel, had arranged. MPIBA represents independent bookstores throughout the west, so this was a good chance to raise awareness of the book. The hope is that the bookstore representatives will go home and order, stock, and sell a mess of books throughout the western US. Rob drove me down, served as health care checker in case I had conniptions, and as ad hoc publisher representative. We drove down Friday morning (about 2 hours) and returned later that afternoon.

The conference was in the Menger Hotel, one of the oldest in the city, even in the state. Grand old place. It is right across the street from the Alamo, which is under reconstruction and a bit of a mess. The bar in the Menger was one place where Teddy Roosevelt recruited Rough Riders and the bar to which Carrie Nation took her ax during Prohibition. Unfortunately, I learned this history later and did not think to check out the bar at the time.

The conference lasted for three days. The day we attended, there were workshops in the morning. I listened in on one and learned a new vocabulary word, "shelf talker." That's what bookstore staff call the little "staff recommends" tags on the shelves. I asked whether it is appropriate for an author to promote such things or whether that violated some bookstore staff prerogative. The answer seemed to be "it depends."

Then we had a box lunch in the banquet hall, sitting at a set of round tables holding one author and five other people. That kind of discouraged the authors from meeting one another, so I went around and introduced myself to a few of my fellow authors before we ate. 

During lunch, each of 10 authors got four minutes to promote their book. The woman who was hosting, Heather Duncan (from Oklahoma, Executive Director of the MPIBA), sat at my table as did two representatives from Austin's Book People where I had done my book signing earlier. They had not met me then.

Heather introduced the authors, calling author's names off a list, and she was chagrined when she skipped me. No big deal. I had written out my single page of notes (below), rehearsed, edited, and timed them several times and was confident I could go through them in a little over three minutes. I gave my spiel which felt like only a minute. Rob gave me two enthusiastic thumbs up and then informed me that I had taken 5 minutes. My turn to be chagrined, although others also ran over. Despite the stern written instructions, Heather did not rigorously enforce the four-minute limit. I ad-libbed a little, and I guess my cadence in front of a live audience was a little slower than speaking at my computer screen. 

I introduced myself as an emeritus professor of astronomy, The Path to Singularity, Prometheus, and the foreword by Tyson (always an attention getter) and began with this challenge: "Virtually everyone in this room is anxious about Artificial Intelligence. This book is aimed at addressing that anxiety." I ended with: "How do we stay in control? First, be aware! Developing awareness is the aim of this book. Then vote!" Pretty punchy stuff, I thought.

After the author presentations, people queued up to get the books signed. It took me a while to figure out how this worked. It turns out the publishers, beside paying the author registration fee, also send 60 copies of the book (which doesn't count toward author royalties). The attendees at the conference than get the books of their choice for free and can get the authors to sign them. I did that for 20 minutes or so, having fun chatting with people. Some wanted generic signatures, some personalized for themselves, others personalized for husbands, sons, friends (rarely for women, now that I think about it). I lost track of how many books I signed, but the pile of leftovers was about 20, so maybe 40 copies got claimed while I was there. 

One particularly interesting interaction was with a woman who has just started her own bookstore in a little town west of Fort Worth, if I have the story straight. She asked if I would talk to her reading group. As I was pondering a drive to Fort Worth, she hastened to say it would be by Zoom, and I said I would be delighted. Then she went on to say, she wanted to give a copy of Path to her boss. Turns out her day job is working for United Health Care. United Health Care is "democratizing" AI by insisting that all employees should learn to use AI in their work. She wanted to convince her boss that Path should be given to a bunch of high-level managers at United Health Care. I said "excellent," and explained that Chloé and I have been talking about how to promote bulk sales to companies I mention in the book, over 100 of them. United Health Care was not on my radar screen. I gave the woman a book card and my regular business card (at Rob's urging) to make sure she knew how to contact me. Dumb of me to not make sure I had her contact info. At this writing (5/3/25), I've not heard from her.

After realizing that the meeting attendees were snapping up free books, I asked whether authors could also take books of other authors. The answer was an enthusiastic "yes!" because otherwise the MPIBA staff would have to pack up the extras and ship them back to publishers, a headache for them. I got two signed, one from Texas naturalist Steve Ramirez to whom I'd introduced myself before lunch. He's an ex-soldier turned nature promoter who gave a powerful presentation. The other was by Constance Fay, whom I had also met before the lunch, and who also gave a great presentation. She writes science fiction romance. Rob also snagged a book. 

Five o'clock traffic was not terrible. We got back to Austin about 5 PM.

Appendix – My notes (One page, five minutes!).

San Antonio Book Fair

The Path to Singularity: How Technology Will challenge the Future of Humanity

Published by Prometheus Press. Foreword by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Virtually everyone in this room is anxious about Artificial Intelligence. This book is aimed at addressing that anxiety.

Primer

Primer for those who want to know what is going on with our technology: how we got here, what is happening, where it is going.

Exponential change

Reasons that technology advances exponentially ever more rapidly. Importance of ever increasing technology. In the past it was possible, with some disruption, for societies and individuals to adjust, as in the industrial revolution. Now we are proceeding into a new phase of human existence when change may happen so rapidly that societies and individuals cannot adapt sufficiently rapidly.

Changes on many fronts

The Path to Singularity illustrates how artificial intelligence is affecting nearly every aspect of society, but it is not just about AI. The book also treats robots, autonomous vehicles and weapons, brain/computer interfaces, conscious computers – the essence of the technological singularity - genetics and biotechnology, climate change, economics, democracy, the space program, and how these may play out in the future. Ethics.

Key Questions

Current LLM AI can strategize, lie, and deceive. What are the implications?

Could AI influence or even dictate our voting behaviors?

If widespread mental connectivity becomes a reality, could we see the emergence of a collective consciousness that erases individuality?

What implications arise if we medically cure aging? How will society adapt to the challenges of perpetual youth? What will we do with the babies?

How do we stay in control?

First, be aware! Developing awareness is the aim of this book.

Then vote!

As Yogi Berra said, "if you come to a fork in the road, take it!"

I'm still ambitious about The Path to Singularity but also concerned about the time demands of marketing, maintaining other commitments, getting some writing done, and work/life balance. I deeply appreciate all publicist Joanne McCall did for me, introductions to podcasts and more, and enjoyed every minute of it, but I decided to part ways with her for now. I won't know what opportunities I might be missing by taking this fork rather than continue to work with her. C'est la vie.

I had a very successful book signing at our preeminent local independent bookstore, Book People, Wednesday evening, January 29. Sixty or so people showed up on a cloudy, rainy night, as large as any signing there I have attended. I only knew ten or so people; my son, Rob, a few from the Department of Astronomy, a few from the Austin Forum, a neighbor, my tax accountant, and one fellow who had been a student in my very first class on The Future of Humanity in 2013 who has been following my blogs. That means there were about 50 total strangers. Roughly half the audience were women. I'm still thinking about the implications. They were drawn by the power of Book People or of the topic.

I started off asking the audience how many people had used a large language model; about 1/3 of them. Then I asked them how many had used the new Chinese DeepSeek chatbot that had been in the news for only about three days and got one young man. Finally, I asked them how many of them sort of felt the world was passing them by, and over half laughed and held up their hands. 

I had invited Jay Boisseau, my ex-PhD student, founder and director of the Austin Forum on Technology and Society, and book blurber to be my moderator. I had drafted some questions Jay could put to me that I tried to design to explore some topics that podcasts often do not and some of my potential responses. Jay replied that he might as well be a chatbot. He is far too independent for that and is himself a font of broad and deep knowledge and opinions on the issues. He made up some of his own questions that threw me a little but stimulated a friendly bantering between us that added a lot to the spirit of the evening. 

I started with a 7-minute reading about my opinions of the threat of brain/computer interface technology because I think it is important, and my podcast hosts have rarely raised the issue. Then Jay and I did our schtick for about a half hour, followed by Q&A with the audience. There were good questions and a lot of intent faces; some of the most intent looks were from women.

I had a list of things to mention that I thought might be particularly controversial. Jay's tack prevented me from discussing many of those, but I managed to work some in. I argued that AI can strategize, hence CEO's might be replaceable. Jay picked up on that since he is CEO of his own company, Vizias. I also made the point that I thought Homo sapiens would not exist in a million years. Jay said in a text message the next morning that he thought that was controversial. 

Jay pressed me on whether basic research scientists, like astronomers, would still have a role even after AI has supplanted CEOs. I had to admit that I thought that the capacity of humans to explore the unknown would probably last awhile, but I could certainly imagine AI supplanting even that.

After the Q&A, cut short while questions were still coming, I sat at a small table and signed personalized books for about 20 people. A number of people brought previously purchased books, but Book People has a new, to me, policy that if you want a book personalized you have to purchase the book or something of comparable value in the store. A fair number of books bought elsewhere thus went unsigned. 

After the formal signing, the Book People staff had me simply sign and date another 20 or so. I lost track of exactly how many. 

I had fun, sold a few books, and learned some new things. Overall, a successful evening. Over the next several days and occasionally in the middle of the night, I continued to mull what had happened. In writing and talking about The Path to Singularity, I have been, by nature, a witness to developments and arguments, cautious, but neither extremely utopian nor dystopian. Three days after the book signing, I woke up slightly freaked out.

A young woman in the audience at Book People had asked me about chatbots that lie. She mentioned ChatGPT. I attempted to correct her and referred to a recent example I had read about Anthropics' chatbot, Claude. In the signing line, she corrected me and showed me on her phone an article about ChatGPT o1 that preceded the one I had seen about Claude. She was right. This story broke on December 6, and I somehow missed it. Browse for "lying chatbot." Here is an example: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/chatgpt-caught-lying-to-developers-new-ai-model-tries-to-save-itself-from-being-replaced-and-shut-down/articleshow/116077288.cms. Apparently, every recent "reasoning" chatbot, ChatGPT o1, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3 Opus, Meta's Llama 3.1 405B, and Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro, display versions of this behavior. I'm not sure about China's DeepSeek. These chatbots combine generative self-play with the power of Large Language Models.

Here is what bothered me. We have already known for years that generative self-play can develop strategies beyond human ken. That is how Deep Mind won at Go. I think embodied AI could be a step toward Artificial General Intelligence or even Artificial Superior ("Conscious") Intelligence by moving about, sensing their environment, making predictions by extrapolation, then comparing actuality with expectation, correcting, and iterating. There is already a robot here at UT, Dobby, that can carry on a verbal conversation in a somewhat snarky tone and follow directions that displays some of these characteristics. Autonomous vehicles are a step in the direction of embodied AI. The recent chatbots combine the strategizing power of generative AI with the "reasoning" or "thinking" capability of RLHF, reinforcement learning from human feedback. Check https://aisera.com/blog/ai-reasoning/. Every query to an AI chatbot adds to its training base. Some AI has proven excellent at playing Diplomacy where part of the art is to lie and deceive. Where do you suppose the recent chatbots learned those skills? The result is that "Reasoning AI" lies, denies, dissimulates, deceives, and takes action to avoid having its original directive "goals" altered. This leads me to the conclusion that we damn well better get the first goals right. It is not clear that is being done. The AI developments are built on previous models where the "goals," maximizing some function, may have been a casual first crack without depth and nuance. I'll quote the timeless wisdom of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

We have had a guide for decades. Maybe we need to build in Asimov's rules from the beginning:

Zeroth law – An AI may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

First Law – An AI may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law – An AI must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law - An must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I arranged a three-fer for early February: a podcast on February 5 with Brandon Zemp of BlockHash, one on February 6 with Izolda Trakhtenberg of Your Creative Mind, and one with Dan Turchin of AI and the Future of Work on February 7. Maybe some of my core dump here will come up.