I read the book on Monday after work till 11PM. It was fascinating, although it has too much sex and torture for my taste.
3 laws of robotics
The first law of robotics is to not harm humans. The problem is how do you define a human. Is it your body, your mind or your soul? A mind with memory living in a virtual world, is it still human?
The first law also doesn’t apply to animals or alien, so the AI can harm them.
Virtual world
As an user of LLM, I can draw so many parallels between the virtual world in the book and LLM. You can ask for anything, be anything and do whatever you want, and the AI will make it happen. It is no different from role playing with LLM.
I remember watching San Junipero, a Black Mirror episode, and I thought it was too clean and too perfect. Is life after death all about sex, drugs and party? This book goes even further, it explores what happens when you can do anything you want and the world becomes meaningless.
Creation origin
I honestly never like the concept of rebooting the world, which is really popular in scifi books and games (Nier Automata). If you make a mistake of inventing AI which can destroy the world, why would you think the next generation will not do the same? By hiding the truth, you are just delaying the inevitable and making the next generation more vulnerable.
The concept does sound nice though, the universe is in a loop. You become Adam and Eve, and the world begins anew.