Book review: Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The middle of this book is what most interested me; the other parts I found dull. In case you want to transgressively read as I did, here's the breakdown:

- Prelude: Skip
- Ch. 1: Skim (but don't entirely skip)
- Ch. 2: Read and try to understand. It's important foundational knowledge.
- Ch. 3-5: Yes, good, read the whole thing.
- Ch. 6: Meh, it's okay. Very speculative, so feel free to skim or skip the more boring sections.
- Ch. 7-8: A little repetitive, but asks some good questions.
- Epilogue: Skip

I like books that encourage me to ponder big questions and tackle big fears. What happens when we die? What is the nature of belief? And now this one: What does it mean to be human during the robot apocalypse? What scares you about the AI revolution?  

What frightens me is what this author and many others seem pretty excited about: possible immortality and endless material wealth. I want to be more than just a consumer in the "Digital Athens" of the future. If (when) machines and algorithms take over all our jobs, I will be reduced to just a consumer of goods and services, and never be a maker or a contributor - and that sounds terrible. 

In my more hopeful moments, I speculate that humans will end up in the robot world like pets are in our world: living fulfilling lives, without understanding what is going on in the wider sphere. What does a dog care about linguistics and the large hadron collider? How could he? But a beloved dog has his needs taken care of, is lovingly interacted with, taken on walks, given stimulation appropriate to his understanding. I imagine that's what "being human in the age of AI" will be like - we won't understand what the robots are doing or why they're doing it, but it won't matter because we'll have fulfilling human lives still. 

During more hopeful moments, I think that. During less hopeful moments, I figure we'll either be exterminated or kept in a zoo, bored out of our minds and longing for freedom. But you can read this book and think through the scenarios for yourself - what frightens you?

Despite all that, what I love about Tegmark's book is its optimism. I may have misgivings and fears, but Tegmark is ready for the AI singularity and joyful about what it could bring to the universe. He writes cogently about the pitfalls and possible apocalypse(s), but doesn't dwell there. He's convinced that with planning and hard work, humanity can make sure it's a "good" AI that succeeds us as the smartest thing around. 

And Tegmark really wants a successor. He wants something out there to appreciate the universe, because, as he writes, "Galaxies are beautiful only because we see and subjectively experience them." His fear, it seems, is that humans will self-destruct or fail to create conscious AI and that there will be nothing and no one left to see and therefore create beauty out of the cold dark of space. 

This idea of beauty existing only when seen is one of several poetic ideas in Life 3.0. I'm also taken by the notion of a galaxy-level AI who thinks one thought every 10,000 years. It reminds me of Pratchett's Great A'Tuin, the world turtle. Its goals are known only to itself, and it moves at slow pace (it's a turtle, after all) through the universe - but what mysteries of consciousness it holds we can only imagine. 

It all comes back to Discworld in the end, really. 

xo, 
Devo

Body posi vs. Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual

I have this book. Sometimes, I want to try out the makeup tutorials in it, but then I remember I am bad at art and can't blend. Seriously, during tech for a show, the set designer tried to teach me to blend clouds for the backdrop. I was very speedily put back on "paint things black" duty.

But in addition to just having little patience and little skill, I realized one day that this book sort of bugged me. Starting with the cover:



So I decided to deal with my annoyance by sticking contrary post-its all throughout the book. See that circle on the cover? It says, "Celebrating 20 years of making women beautiful." My response: Women are already beautiful.

There's a two-page spread devoted to six different kinds of makeup bags: home, everyday, evening, in your desk drawer, for travel, in your gym bag. Let me repeat that: Makeup in your gym bag. Sweetie, if I manage to go to the gym, the last thing I'm concerned with is putting on a perfect face afterwards. You just increased your chances of zombie apocalypse survival. Who cares what your face looks like?

The tool guide, including an inordinate amount of brushes. First of all, when I buy tools, I want to buy pens, notebooks, screwguns. Second, Your worth is not determined by how much stuff you own.

Section entitled: Care and Maintenance of Tools. Care for self and others is what matters. Stuff is transitory.

Chapter 4: Face. A great face is your face, whatever that is. 

Section: Preparing your face for makeup. Steps include analyzing the type and condition of your face, deciding on products, selecting various shades. My steps include, 1) Ask yourself: Does this make me happy? 2) Proceed if it does. Don't if it doesn't.

The next section is concealers and correctors. Now, I know the benefit of covering up that zit that just won't die. I get it. Zits are the worst. But treating your whole face as though it needs to be concealed/evened/corrected? Nah. You are too beautiful and worthwhile to conceal. Your face needs no correction, it is good as-is. 

Foundation: Beauty starts with loving yourself.

Now, of course, YMMV. If you love makeup, great. Buy this book and be free. Paint your face and line your lips and have a grand ol' time. But for me, the makeup manual has become a symbol of things that I'm trying let go of: materialism and consumerism, obsession with appearance and general vanity, teaching women that they're only worth what they look like.

Makeup is not evil. It is not bad or wrong. It can be a powerful tool of expression and self. But it is not the only thing that matters, nor necessarily the most important.

And thus concludes my mini-rant.

xo,
Devo

Transgressive Reading: Out of Sequence

I just read this book: The Unseen by Katherine Webb.

Or at least, I sort-of read this book. I mostly read it. I read nearly all the words on all the pages. But I didn’t read them in order. Did I really read it, then? Let’s talk[1] about that.

For a long time, I thought the only way to read a book was to start at the first word and read to the last one. And if I didn’t – if I didn’t read every sentence, and in the order that the author intended – I hadn’t really read it. It wasn’t a true experience. It was a cheat, a fake.

I’ve gotten over that, thankfully.

The Unseen (Amazon summary here) follows three characters, two in the same time and place, and one 100 years later. (Full disclosure, modern-researcher-slash-historic-mystery-solver-interspersed-with-the-historical-happenings is a plot device that annoys[2] me[3]. In The Secret History of the Pink Carnation series, I just finally started skipping every chapter from the modern POV and got along much better.) Per that long parenthetical, the modern-day plot I left by the wayside. The modern to historic back to modern thing yanks me around too much, and I'm left disconnected from the story.

Anyway.

I’m left with the two women in 1911, living in the same house whose stories are connected but each have different narrative POVs. I didn’t feel like waiting to find out what happened with Woman A by being diverted by Woman B. 

So I did the unthinkable, the creative-vision-destorying: I read out of sequence, skipping Woman B’s plot to read all of Woman A’s, and then back through to read B. It made my life much better, let me tell you.

I suppose it depends on what one wants out of a reading experience. If all the threads are engaging enough and the writing captivating enough[4], I want the narrative as the author intends.

But in the case of The Unseen, I wanted light. Fluffy. Easy to follow. And the POV hopping was harshing my mellow, so I fixed it[5].

To answer the opening question of this post, I'll say yes. Yes, I read The Unseen. Did I receive the story the way it was meant to be? Probably not. But I did read it.

So here's my reading advice: read how you like. You want only the book sequenced as written? Awesome, read from Word Open to Word Close. You want to skim? Skim away. You want to learn about this plot and these characters, not that plot and those characters? Sweet, skip around until you find the thread you like.

In the current patois: You do you.

xo,

Devo

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[1] Rather, let’s I talk at you about that.

[2] Feeling compelled to defend myself, I point out that Shakespeare himself gave up on the Chris Sly Taming of the Shrew frame after one scene.

[3] Yes yes, there are many narrative devices that bug. But I promise there are many devices that I love!

[4] Both very subjective criteria

[5] Did the same with Way of Shadows – found the A plot and followed it, ignoring all the political machinations and cultural gobbledygook that put books-with-maps on my do-not-read list.