Image of the Week
Two books we recently published in the Pragmatic Stories series.
So…
I had intended to write about the early days of artificial intelligence this week, but the day job intervened. Instead, I offer this slight bit of frivolity, the first few paragraphs of what might develop into a purely fictional story about some definitely real people:
THE NATURALIST AND THE POET’S DAUGHTER
The Inventor’s soirées are an essential part of the London social scene, and invitations are highly sought after. Here, socialites and politicians mingle with authors, actors, and scientists to share the latest gossip and literary and scientific novelties. If you want to listen in on a member of young Queen Victoria’s court debating the benefits of industrialization with a popular novelist, the Inventor’s parlor is the place to be.
This particular Saturday afternoon features music and dancing — and much talk. Tables have been laid with tarts and finger sandwiches, oysters and cold salmon — and the drinks: wine, cordials, Madeira, punch. We find the young Naturalist, just back from a long sea voyage and having taken up temporary residence in London to do research on his book, chatting up an attractive young woman by the punchbowl. the Naturalist refuses an oyster, pleading chronic indigestion, and turns at the sound of the Inventor’s voice.
The highlight of the afternoon has arrived: a scientific presentation by the Inventor himself. Everyone here is familiar with the Inventor’s calculating machine, which he has been laboring over but still hasn’t finished. It is designed to perform a specific laborious mathematical task critical to much scientific research. It hints at even more: it isn’t hard to imagine how other, similar machines could be built to perform other number-crunching chores. The Inventor has done more than hint: he has lectured to the scientific community and the nobility about the potential of his technology. The calculating machine is the most ambitious of the Inventor’s devices to date, and he is frustrated by his inability to get funding to complete it. His guests know all that. They’ve been here before.
But the Inventor isn’t interested in talking about that machine this afternoon. All his energy is now directed toward his new creation, the analytical machine. While the calculating machine can perform one task, the analytical machine, he tells them, is a universal device. It can perform any describable computation. No need to build other calculating machines: this one is all you need or will ever need. Oh, and it’s not limited to working with numbers: it can operate just as well on text or on logical propositions. A translating machine? A thinking machine? Yes, it’s all of that.
Some of the guests are clearly having trouble following this. One young woman, though, there by the punchbowl, is hanging on the Inventor’s words with more interest — and apparently a deeper understanding — than anyone else present. The understanding is real — and earned. For four years now, she has been — what? the Inventor’s pupil, his protégé, his booster? All of that. We shall call her the Poet’s Daughter for so she is. She nods in understanding: she sees the implication of this marvelous device — and its limitation. Yes, it can perform any task you can tell it to do, but you have to tell it, and this telling requires another new innovation. A language for communicating with the machine.
It is not lost on the Naturalist that this young woman whom he was so recently chatting up is following the Inventor’s presentation with more than polite attention. Yes, clearly of a more than common intelligence. He takes advantage of her focused attention to examine her more closely. He notes the intelligent supraorbital ridge, the ample childbearing hips, the flare of the nostrils, the ringlets brushing the nape of the neck. An exceptional specimen, clearly. But there is that ring on her finger…
Ah. The author has finally introduced the Conflict.
BEFORE YOU GO…
The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Blogroll
AI Supremacy
Ahead of AI
Mark Watson’s AI Books and Blo
Doctors Without Borders
World Central Kitchen
Kent Beck’s advice for geeks
Tales from the Jar Side
Bookshop.org
New York Review of Books
Pragmatic Bookshelf
ICYMI
Thanks for reading. You can read all the back issues of Swaine’s World at my blog home.
Coming Attractions
In the coming weeks, more on the story of the AI revolution and how we got here.
This seems very much like earlier posts.