AI View of AI, Scaling Wars

The artilects, as they have been conceived so far in this book, have been largely "nanoteched" creatures. But nanotechnology may be unnecessarily restrictive and far too large a scale to be suitable for advanced artilects. It may be possible that a "femtoteched" creature could be built. Such "femto-artilects" or "femtolects" as they will be called from now on, would be vastly superior to "nano-artilects" or "nanolects," thus setting the stage for a new "species dominance war" all over again. ...

 Rounded Numbers are Cultural Attractors

Rounded numbers are cultural attractors: They are easier to remember and provide better symbols for magnitudes. So we celebrate twentieth wedding anniversaries, hundredth issues of journals, the millionth copy sold of a record, and so on. This, in turn, creates a special cultural attractor for prices, just below rounded numbers—$9.99 or $9,990 are likely price tags—so as to avoid the evocation of a higher magnitude.