On reflection…
Seen yesterday in a small town in Burgundy.
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Quote of the Day
”That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
- Dorothy Parker
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Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
J.S. Bach | Chorus Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme from Cantata BWV 140
“Wake up, the voice calls us”. I keep wanting to say this to Keir Starmer.
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Long Read of the Day
Emerson, AI, and The Force
I’ve been reading Neal Stephenson ever since, many years ago, I came on “In the Beginning was the Command Line”, his wonderful essay on computer operating systems. Recently he was invited to give a talk at a conference organised by the Laude Institute in San Francisco, and afterwards tidied up his script into this thoughtful essay on AI and education.
Here’s how it opens:
The most relevant aspect of my work to the theme of this meeting was my novel The Diamond Age, which was published about thirty years ago. At the beginning of this book we see a conversation between Lord Finkle-McGraw, who is an Equity Lord in a futuristic neo-Victorian society, and John Hackworth, an engineer who works in one of his companies.
Finkle-McGraw is a classic founder. He didn’t come from a privileged background, except insofar as having a stable family and a decent basic education confers privilege. But when he was young he was brilliant, ambitious, hard-working, and had a vision. He built that into something valuable and as a result became rich and powerful. As so often happens, he used his money to make life good for his children by sending them to the right schools, connecting them to the right people, and so on.
He wasn’t entirely happy with the results. His kids didn’t end up having the traits that had made him successful. He suspects it’s because they didn’t have to work hard and overcome obstacles. Now he has a granddaughter. He knows that the parents are going to raise this girl in the same way, with the same results. He can’t interfere in a heavy-handed way. But the parents can’t possibly object if he gives his granddaughter an educational book. So he commissions Hackworth to make the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, an interactive book that will adapt as the user grows and learns. This book is powered by molecular nanotechnology, but any present-day reader will immediately recognize it as an AI system.
As the plot unfolds, three copies of the Primer are made and bestowed on girls from very different backgrounds. In two cases the result is a sort of fizzle. The Primer works as it’s supposed to for a while, but these girls lose interest and set it aside. The third copy falls into the hands of a girl from an abusive and underprivileged background, and it ends up giving her close to superhuman abilities.
Thirty years on, I think I have enough distance on this to grade my performance…
Do read on. It’s worth it. And if you’re tempted to open ‘In the Beginning was the Command line’, then set aside some time because you’ll be hooked. And if you’re really pushed for time, go to the section of the Hole Hawg. You’ll find it on page 36 onwards.
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