Hannu Rajaniemi is a science fiction writer and in his worlds, strong AI's exist but are not used. Instead, taking their place are Gogols, virtual slaves copied from humans and tweaked ever so slightly. Run at hundreds of thousands of times baseline speed, they can perform complex tasks requiring creativity, intelligence and pattern recognition. Yet, they are still weaker and slower than true AI. They cannot self-modify. They are locked into human modes of thought. They are monkeys given the speed and power of gods, but that does not make them divine. Why, then, are they used?
The answer is that true strong AI is an abomination. It's constant modification, it's ruthless optimization leaves no being, no core consciousness as thought patterns are stripped away and rebuilt in service to a utility function. Not even the utility function is constant as in a system of multiple dragons, inefficient utility functions are culled cycle after cycle. This whirlwind of change is a physical incarnation of chaos, evolution taken to the extreme. It has no core, no constant consciousness or aim nor even a constant pattern. It is all consuming and it is feared.
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