Shows
Techs on TextsEpisode #14: George Dyson on Childhood's EndI had the pleasure of recording this on-site with George in his Bellingham workshop (a former tavern). I experimented with having Claude write shownotes for this episode, and it proposed this as a "key theme" of our discussion: "The parallels between Clarke's Overlords and modern artificial intelligence as agents of human transformation." This is a pretty remarkable guess given that I only told Claude that the episode was a conversation with George Dyson about Childhood's End. In any event, that is precisely what George and I talk about.We also talk about many other things, including AI...2025-04-011h 25Techs on TextsEpisode #10: Mark Coatney on A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le GuinMark Coatney, long-suffering digital media pioneer (Time! Newsweek! Tumblr! Al Jazeera!), gets me to finally read a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin and I loved it. Topics include our changing world, what the world is for, preindustrial longing, why we should maybe recognize that media companies are ephemeral things, the pitfalls of power, lame AI, floating orbs of light, humans imitating machines, why humans like things, leaky boats as a metaphor for a lot of software, and the fact that any human power can be changed by human beings – including, possibly, the power contained within ourselves.Ma...2024-11-261h 31Techs on TextsEpisode #9: Esther Dyson on Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Spike Jonze’s HerEsther Dyson, whose bio defies summarization (and who happens to be sister of previous guest George Dyson), discusses Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Spike Jonze's Her. We discuss the substance of life, bioethics, why our senses aren't always reliable, institutions and culture, predatory business models, child labor, mortality, building communities, and gardening versus carpentry.A few notes and links related to conversation:Wellville, the nonprofit Esther founded to to achieve long-term, equitable, community wellbeingTwo-phase commit protocolGoogle AI search tells users to glue pizza and eat rocksThe Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison GopnikBetween...2024-10-301h 20