Asimov and the positronic brain

It was my turn to pick the book for book club this month and I picked The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. CoS is the follow up to iRobot and really leans into the tension between humans and robots as robots continue to take people’s jobs. Even though the book was written in 1953, the discourse in the book is more relevant than ever. This article about the mathematically “proven” limitations in AI (TL;DR AI is good for simple problems but unstable over time for anything more complex) reminded me of this quote from The Caves of Steel:

“There’s no way we can raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism. We can’t, damn it, we can’t. Not as long as we don’t understand what makes our own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can’t measure. What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood. It’s what makes us men.”

Starting in December I plotted out the book I’m working on. I take down a sticky note every time I finish outlining a scene. I’m down to the third act and making good progress. When I’m done I still need to go back and write the first draft, but I’m hoping it will be easier with all the main scenes outlined.

The evolution of a Star Wars fan: Every child wants to be a Jedi. Every adult feels like a Sith.

In the age of AI, I’m writing the first draft of my next book by hand. I use AI at work, I’m not opposed to it, but for me, the creative process is more about getting the ideas out of my head, not coming up with new ideas. For that, a pen and paper still work best for me.

One-Punch Man - The Perfect Analogy for Gen Z

TL;DR - One-Punch Man is the perfect analogy for Gen Z. Saitama (aka One-Punch Man) wants to do the right thing, but half the time can’t be bothered because he finds that doing the right thing is kind of boring.

For my birthday, I asked my kids to give me one of their favorite books. My son-in-law gave me my very first manga, One-Punch Man. I haven’t considered myself a fan of anime, when the only real options available in the states were movies like Vampire Hunter D, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell. That being said, all of my kids are into anime and I’ve seen my share of individual episodes of various shows.

My children described One-Punch Man to me as the anime for people who don’t like anime, or the anti-anime anime. It still meets all the conventions (I don’t know what that means), of modern anime, but also makes fun of all of those conventions while being very enjoyable.

I read volume one of the manga and then watched both seasons of the anime and enjoyed both. One-Punch Man felt very similar to another favorite comic turned animation series of mine, The Tick.

So, if you’re Gen X and enjoyed the original Fox series, The Tick, you should check out One-Punch Man.