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I thought that Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" was about the profound culture-shaping power of "massively online education" -- like Khan Academy, Coursera,
by mherdeg 10y ago
I thought that Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" was about the profound culture-shaping power of "massively online education" -- like Khan Academy, Coursera, EdX, etc.
But maybe on further reflection there is just as much influence on a society's culture from growing up with "virtual assistants" -- whether it's the widespread availability of a search engine or a ubiquitous voice-activated thing.
- viraptor 10y agoI think there's a massive difference between them in one aspect: assistants will only tell you what you ask them, while the diamond age book had a programmed purpose and partial syllabus of its own. Unfortunately few people ask complex questions that lead through non trivial topics on their own... Maybe the new assistant for kids that they write about will have better results here. But can it really push kids towards specific thoughts and activities like the Primer?
- Swizec 10y agoI'd love to ask Siri or Alexa complex questions! But they can't even handle the operator "and" So ya know ... Yes, it pisses me off that "Alexa play X playlist on shuffle" or "Alexa play and shuffle" doesn't work. And Siri can't do "What's the stock of X and Y" to the point that she actively ignores "and" and interprets it as eithe "in" or "end" Because "tesla in amazon" or "tesla end amazon" makes soooo much more sense than "tesla and amazon"
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]