[ExI] Fwd: This means something...

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 10:59 PM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Clinic Seed story was originally posted on the sl4 list 20 years ago. I don't know how many, if any, of the AI researchers of that day were on that list. It didn't get any comments there, and over the years I have seen little comment. But the early Terasem web site had a counter on downloads, and as I recall, someone mentioned 60,000. I would not count on this being true, but if it is, the influence was widespread beyond however many were reading sl4.

Yeah, 'tis a standard fate for authors like us.  The stuff we write
sometimes gets read and appreciated far, far beyond what we ever see
any reflection of.  (For my most recent book, I had to rely on
indirect data since I was never given direct sales figures, and
feedback to me from readers has been minimal.  But I have solid data
that it was a commercial success - which is, for some works, the only
criteria that matters.)

I recall writing fiction about this taken to an extreme, many years
ago.  I believe I phrased it something like, "You never know who is
worshipping you."