Ken’s Blog

There is a certain literary trope which I love (when it’s done well). It is the moment in certain works of fiction when the author slyly reveals to the reader/viewer that everything they have been reading or watching is actually an illusion.

This is a very “meta” rhetorical device, because of course it is all an illusion. We know quite well that we are watching a play or a movie, or reading a book.

So this device should not work. Yet it does work, but only when it is done well, by a skilled creator. Tomorrow I will describe some of my favorite examples.

If we want to represent superintelligence in fiction, is there any good way to do it? I know that many have tried, but so far I haven’t encountered a result that felt completely satisfactory to me.

One of my favorite attempts was Frank Herbert’s representation of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood in the Dune trilogy. I was especially struck by their ability to hold entire conversations amongst themselves, while they are simultaneously speaking with unenhanced humans, without the latter even suspecting the existence of this higher level of conversation.

There is something about such a double consciousness that strikes me as very human, even though it is far beyond the powers of actual humans. I think it is this quality that I am looking for: Some quality of mind that is far beyond the capability of actual people, but that nonetheless resonates with readers/viewers as something distinctly human.

Does anyone out there have other examples of superhuman intelligence in fiction that manage to convey this dual quality?

Today I read an article in the NY Times about Klotho. It’s a hormone that has been shown to cause mice to live longer and become effectively smarter in various ways.

And that got me wondering. What would happen should some runaway virus suddenly cause every human on the planet to become much more intelligent?

Which got me thinking about the entire question of intelligence. What does it really mean that we are “intelligent”? Is intelligence a linear scale that can keep going up without limit?

It’s a tricky question partly because “intelligence” is such an elusive quality. We might say that we are more intelligent than, say, a dog or an octopus. But the truth is that we are differently intelligent than a dog or an octopus.

Dogs can use their brains to easily do things — like follow a cold trail or recognize one scent among many — that are far beyond human capabilities. We aren’t even sure how dogs are able to do such things, let alone duplicate those capabilities.

An octopus can perform quite independent tasks with each of its eight tentacles, all working simultaneously on different subtasks to solve complex problems together like a very high functioning team. No individual human can do that.

So it’s not just a matter of “more intelligent”, but rather a matter of “more intelligent in the way that a human is already intelligent”. But even that restricted definition is complicated.

Do we mean better at math? Better at languages? Better at reading subtle changes in facial or bodily expression to precisely infer the emotional state of other humans?

What would we become if we were to become twice as good at these things? Or ten times as good? Would we still be essentially human, or would we become something else entirely — something that nobody today would recognize?

Of all the scientific research papers I read before graduating from high school, I am quite certain that this particular research paper had, by a wide margin, the greatest influence on me.

In fact, today I find this paper to be especially timely.

Walking into a tiki bar in Chicago is a wonderful experience. Somehow I feel connected with all of the people who have been here before me. 😉

Sometime in the next decade, pretty much everybody will be wearing mixed reality glasses. When that happens, the technology will be there for the world around us to be captured, at all times, from the point of view of every single person.

So here’s a scenario we might try to work to avoid: There’s a lot of money to be made by mining all that data. So much money in fact, that if I were a major multinational corporation, I would do anything and everything to secure my right to access that massive digital goldmine.

Which means, on a practical level, that a very large amount of money will be available to flow to politicians over the course of the next decade to secure that access. The ability for these corporations to know anything and everything about the whereabouts and activities of all citizens could come to be seen as a cornerstone of our digital economy.

That will be the scenario unless we collectively have the awareness to decide otherwise. In such a scenario, if you oppose that unfettered access, you may come to be seen as a kind of cyber-terrorist. In particular, you may stand accused of attacking the very core of our nation’s economic well-being, in the name of what will be called an outdated definition of individual privacy.

That will not be a good thing.

At the moment I am in Chicago. I’m here for a SIGGRAPH conference jury meeting, which is a lot of work but also great fun.

Last night we all went out to dinner at a very traditional Chicago pizza restaurant. I thought that I was going to be out of luck, being vegan.

But that didn’t seem to be a problem at all. The waiter had them cook for me a really delicious vegetable Chicago deep-dish pizza.

Being from New York City, I think of Chicago deep-dish pizza as something exotic and almost otherworldly (come to think of it, it does look sort of like a UFO). So I was very happy with this option.

The meal turned out to be delicious and very satisfying. Before eating it, I snapped a photo with my SmartPhone, which I sent to a friend.

My friend, looking at the photo, was quite taken aback. She said that in her opinion, all deep-dish pizzas are unnaturally giant and oddly intimidating.

I replied that the phrase “unnaturally giant and oddly intimidating” seemed like a great description of Chicago architecture. We agreed that it’s probably a Chicago thing.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

For the last few days I’ve been binging on Scott Walker’s songs and videos, from his early teen idol phase through his Jacques Brel / Mort Shuman period and on through his radical later reinventions creating music that can perhaps be best described as “Bowie meets Stockhausen”.

I can’t even think of anyone else to compare to Scott Walker. He was truly unique, absolutely fearless in his approach to musical exploration, and impossible to categorize, with a voice that was simply sublime.

Sadly, Scott passed away earlier this week. But I am sure that his incomparable music will live on, to shine its radiant light upon the world for centuries to come.

Sometimes the solution to a mathematical problem seems so obvious that you don’t think you should even bother writing it down. I often make that mistake.

But every once in a while I think about something that seems obvious on the face of it, and I take the trouble to write it down. And then suddenly I realize I’d had it all wrong.

I discover that the thing that had seemed to consist of just one simple step actually consists of three different steps. And each of those steps can be unpacked to contain sub-problems that are all interesting in their own right.

Before I know it, I’m generalizing the problem. I’m connecting it to other problems I’ve seen, and getting a whole new set of insights.

That’s why I try, on my better days, not to take mathematical problems for granted. And also to remember to carry a pen.

This evening was the third time I have seen Lanford Wilson’s play Burn This on Broadway. The first time was the original production with John Malkovich in the leading role of Pale.

The second time, that role was played by Ed Norton. This evening, the same role was played by Adam Driver.

It amazes me how different these productions are. Each time the same character, each time the same words, yet each time an entirely different outcome.

It is great to have the luxury to compare. And I must say, having now seen the interpretations by Norton and Driver, both of whom are excellent stage actors, I am far more appreciative of the original.

Even across the memory of all these years, I can still feel the elemental power and subtlety of Malkovich’s performance. His portrayal digs deep into a character whom it is all too easy to render as a caricature.

It’s a shame there is no good way to capture for posterity a live theater performance, while keeping all of its subtlety and sense of presence intact. Fortunately, we’re working on that. 🙂