Regular readers have detected a pause. I introduced Colossus to review it, and then went silent. This is because I am wrestling with some foundational ideas on how to proceed. Namely, how do you evaluate the interfaces to speculative strong artificial intelligence? This, finally, is that answer. Or at least a first draft. It’s giant and feels sprawling and almost certainly wrong, but trying to get this perfect is a fool’s errand, and I need to get this out there so we can move on.

I expect most readers are less interested in this kind of framework than they are how it gets applied to their favorite sci-fi AIs. If you’re mostly here for the fiction, skip this one. It’s long.