"Programmer Science Fiction: My case for a new sub-genre", Sam T. Oates 2026

I'm impressed by the essay. I think it's quite good. I'm unsure about the name of "programmer fiction" or all the exact categorizations or influences, but I think he's pointing at a real cluster, and correct to exclude both "mainstream" genre fiction and the more explicitly "ratfic", as well as others, for reasons I can't quite precisely articulate.

One thing I especially appreciate about it is that the categorization is mostly nonsocial. Like exploring the works themselves and the intellectual influences rather than the social graph. The few times where it does go social (including eg linking my own review on Chiang) is imo among the weakest points of this essay.

[-]gwern1d30

I agree 'programmer fiction' is an unlovely name (as well as misleading), but I don't see any obviously superior name for this cluster. (The first one that sprung to mind for me is "mechanical fiction" - an interesting name, which captures the deep uncanniness of it when done well and the author has truly stared into the void.)

[-]Rattengift1d10

I would probably offer something like 'loopfic' or 'systems fiction'. Both because of the general ideological tie to Hofstadter's work (as the essay notes), and because the most concise way of describing the pinpoint of the authors' fixations is "the workings and immense failure cases of strange/recursive loops."

It's why, as the author notes, Infinite Jest and House of Leaves fit so well, despite not really fitting the S part of SF. The common ground between all entries that fit clearly in the genre is dealing with recursion (whether as an explicit focus of the story, like in AIfics, or implicitly, like in the sub-subgenre of libertarian governance fics) in a deeper way than most other genres. This approach to storytelling bleeds into nearly everything about the stories told in the genre, down to the interactions characters have.

[-]Seth Herd2d20

Excellent! This list contains many of my favorite books and authors, and has many I haven't seen. Apparently I am a programmer scifi fan.

One function of science fiction is to help us see possible futures, so we can choose among them with a little more foresight.

I've slowed down in reading science fiction as science has outpaced it. So little scifi tries to take seriously the path we're currently hurtling down toward LLM-based advanced AI and AGI.

We need a hundred Accelerandos. There are so many ways the future could unfold, and we see them so unclearly. Mapping them out, even hastily, would do so much good.

I think we need a different genre: generalist science fiction, about our current historical moment and its potential paths. Accurately mapping out futures requires understanding multiple areas of science well enough to create plausible models of how they'd interact. The future will be governed by confluences of ML/AI technology, individual psychology, group psychology, economics, politics, etc. Just punting on any of these is likely to produce very wrong models. I see most scifi, even that written by scientists (including computer scientists) as simply punting on taking seriously other aspects of how the world really works. That allows it to contribute ideas but not actual models of the future.

Charles Stross in Accelerand and elsewhere is a central model of a smart generalist who happens to include the art of writing among his many areas of interest Accelerando is terrible writing by the standard of his later, excellent work - but still his most valuable and perhaps widest-known because he actually tries to model a realistic (if amusing) path into the future. We need more of this, not just for fun, but also for survival.

Shoutout: I recently read Max Harms' Red Heart and nominate it as the most realistic and therefore useful examination of our path toward AGI, and an enjoyable read. It's the one book I can name that does everything I want. (Accelerando is remarkable for being so early and still so relevant, but it does not take the alignment problem seriously).

[-]Mo Putera1d20

I'd emphasize that we need more positive Accelerandos. Stross was explicit that it didn't end well for us, although it did seem like the median trajectory.

[-]Metacelsus2d24

Is there supposed to be a link here?

[-]gwern2d20

Yes. I've edited it back in. I know for sure it was there when I tried to make a linkpost, but it didn't seem to take. The entire LW2 post creation UI/UX has changed since the last time I used it (and not for the better, IMO, it's now in the Apple school of 'hide away as much as possible', so maybe I should just post through GW to avoid problems) so I probably misunderstood something about the new forms.

[-]RobertM2d20

Maybe a bug? Though it seemed to work for me when I tested it on a draft:

[-]gwern2d20

My guess is that you guys added a little... checkmark confirmation? thingie, which I've never seen before on any link submission interface and might have silently dropped the URL I pasted into it. I don't know. (This is what happens when you change interfaces people have used for many years and have muscle memory; they can't explain why things are going wrong.)

[-]antanaclasis1d10

Thanks for the linkpost! I (in the pattern the author mentioned) was already familiar with part of the list and had never heard of some of the others - now I have some promising new additions to my reading list.

It's also just an enjoyable read as a piece of ethnography.

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