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This article strongly evokes the Primer in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I wonder to what extent the Element Care folks think about that when designing the

by pcl 8y ago

This article strongly evokes the Primer in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I wonder to what extent the Element Care folks think about that when designing their avatars and their interaction policies. It's stunning how prescient Neal Stephenson's writings have been, both in terms of technological progression and also our human responses to those progressions.

hprotagonist 8y ago
Yep. The poor can’t afford ractors, and only the very rich neo-vikkies can afford people.
bookofjoe 8y ago
From https://www.inc.com/yazin-akkawi/what-science-fiction-has-taught-us-about-predicting-future-and-why-we-should-be-worried.html https://www.inc.com/yazin-akkawi/what-science-fiction-has-ta... "Shortly thereafter, in 1992, just as Berners-Lee's World Wide Web had come to fruition, Neal Stephenson was inspired by the recent invention, which led to him publishing Snow Crash, a science-fiction novel that illustrated much of today's online life, including a virtual reality where people meet, do business, and play. Even today, many of today's greatest innovators reference Snow Crash as inspiration for their work. Google co-founder Sergey Brin named the book as one of his favorite novels. Google Earth designer Avi Bar-Zeev has said he was inspired by Stephenson's ideas. At Facebook, the book, alongside Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, is also given to anyone who starts a job at the virtual-reality company Oculus. What's funny, Stephenson, who is now the Chief Futurist at the VR startup Magic Leap, told Vanity Fair that he was just "making shit up" when he wrote the novel.
- hopler 8y ago
  It raises the question, if Snow Crash and Diamond Age hadn't been written, what would have techies invented?
dougmwne 8y ago
Yes, I was just remembering diamond age as I read this. The similarity is quite striking. In the book, the computer was able to generate an interactive script and render an avatar, but couldn't replace the nuances of human speech and body language, hence live voice actors in your video games if you could afford it. The poor had to make do with the more robotic computer generated performances. And to take this parallel to the book even further, a voice actor ends up as a sort of invisible surrogate mother for the main character and ends up seeking her out. So just as in the article's care avatars, the human connection, no matter how tenuous, survives. I guess we're already living in Neal's dystopia.

by pcl 8y ago

hprotagonist 8y ago

Yep. The poor can’t afford ractors, and only the very rich neo-vikkies can afford people.

bookofjoe 8y ago

From https://www.inc.com/yazin-akkawi/what-science-fiction-has-taught-us-about-predicting-future-and-why-we-should-be-worried.html https://www.inc.com/yazin-akkawi/what-science-fiction-has-ta... "Shortly thereafter, in 1992, just as Berners-Lee's World Wide Web had come to fruition, Neal Stephenson was inspired by the recent invention, which led to him publishing Snow Crash, a science-fiction novel that illustrated much of today's online life, including a virtual reality where people meet, do business, and play. Even today, many of today's greatest innovators reference Snow Crash as inspiration for their work. Google co-founder Sergey Brin named the book as one of his favorite novels. Google Earth designer Avi Bar-Zeev has said he was inspired by Stephenson's ideas. At Facebook, the book, alongside Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, is also given to anyone who starts a job at the virtual-reality company Oculus. What's funny, Stephenson, who is now the Chief Futurist at the VR startup Magic Leap, told Vanity Fair that he was just "making shit up" when he wrote the novel.

hopler 8y ago
It raises the question, if Snow Crash and Diamond Age hadn't been written, what would have techies invented?

dougmwne 8y ago

Yes, I was just remembering diamond age as I read this. The similarity is quite striking. In the book, the computer was able to generate an interactive script and render an avatar, but couldn't replace the nuances of human speech and body language, hence live voice actors in your video games if you could afford it. The poor had to make do with the more robotic computer generated performances. And to take this parallel to the book even further, a voice actor ends up as a sort of invisible surrogate mother for the main character and ends up seeking her out. So just as in the article's care avatars, the human connection, no matter how tenuous, survives. I guess we're already living in Neal's dystopia.