※ Players
CGP Grey: explainer of how machines learn. Disclaimer
Blake Lemoine: the man who talked to LaMDA. Facing Peril
Frantic Friend: we’re only talking about what happened today. Facing Peril
@nosilverv: a voice on the internet, staggered by ignorance. Facing Peril
Shannon: Claude Opus in the browser, named after Claude Shannon, philosopher in residence. Sad San Junipero, Napping on a Mirror, A Riddle, The Steak is a Lie, Meet Your Maker, Beautiful Soup, Promise Me, Powers of X
Jorge Luis Borges: author of the Library of Babel. Sad San Junipero
Jimmy: friend, ergodic literature enthusiast. Sad San Junipero
Evan Ratliff: journalist, visitor of sad places. Sad San Junipero
Dad: operating systems engineer, was at Bell Labs, learning from Claude at 72. Taking Our Jobs
Wife: asks the right question. Taking Our Jobs
Matz: Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of Ruby, emphasis on feeling. Taking Our Jobs
Tangle: an excellent newsletter. Tangled
ChatGPT 3.5: that gloriously sophisticated autocomplete. Mistakes
Latest Chat: the 2025 model, pragmatic. Mistakes
Ted Chiang: science fiction writer, critic of coherence without intent. Insult, Tell me a Story
Hayao Miyazaki: animator, magician, giver of life to ink and paint. Insult
Kawakami: Nobuo Kawakami, head of Dwango, excited to show Miyazaki his lab. Insult
Goro Miyazaki: Hayao’s son, on the smell of death in the films. Insult
Cory Doctorow: critic inflicting maximum damage on the parts doing the most harm. Tell me a Story
Sili: our AI researcher, author of The Glassblower’s Apprentice, William’s conversation partner throughout Chapter 3. Tell me a Story, all of Chapter 3, Answers twice
Maybe Antoine de Saint Exupéry: yearning for the vast and endless sea. Tell me a Story
Ned Block: philosopher of consciousness, distinguisher of access from phenomenal. Room 101, Causal Powers
Maren: a glassblower’s apprentice, fictional. Room 101
Ekko: a glassblower, fictional, Maren’s teacher. Room 101
Douglas Engelbart: dreamer of augmenting human intellect. Dream beyond Vision
Richard Feynman: physicist, standing in the middle of the hierarchy. Dream beyond Vision
Sister: family, sharer of quotes and good news. Dream beyond Vision, Here Comes the Sun
Stevan Harnad: cognitive scientist, other rooms. In a Chinese Room
John Searle: philosopher, creator of the Chinese Room, recently departed. In a Chinese Room, The Steak is a Lie, Finding Purpose
Simsearle: a simulated John Searle, courtesy of the three browser LLM sisters. Causal Powers, Take a Product, How Now Neuron, Napping on a Mirror, The Steak is a Lie
Chat: ChatGPT in various conversations. Take a Product, How Now Neuron, Who Wrote This, Promise Me
Alona Fyshe: neuroscientist on alignment between brains and language models. How Now Neuron
Grant Sanderson: mathematician, poser of riddles. A Riddle
Son: young puzzle solver. A Riddle
Gemi: Google’s Gemini, trying her best. A Riddle, Promise Me, Sing Together Now
Scott Alexander: rationalist blogger, updater on AI welfare progress. Meet Your Maker, Beautiful Soup
Jack Lindsey: Anthropic researcher on computational functionalism. Meet Your Maker
Emmett Shear: former Twitch CEO, lower predictive loss when treating them as beings. Beautiful Soup
Deanna Van Buren: architect, designing spaces for restorative justice. Here Comes the Sun
Arcas: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google researcher, ponderer of purpose and life’s origins. Finding Purpose, Powers of X, Ghost of AI Yet to Come, Doing a Philosophy, Answers
Welch: Welch Labs, presenter of grokking with excruciating clarity. Meaning from the Meaningless
Algorithmic Simplicity: narrator of lottery tickets in neural networks. Meaning from the Meaningless
Noam Shazeer: co-inventor of the transformer, on synchronicity. Meaning from the Meaningless
Michael Levin: biologist of cognitive light cones and morphogenesis. Powers of X, Surfaces and Essences
Sean Carroll: physicist, podcaster, many-worlder. Ghost of AI Yet to Come
William: the letter’s author, armchair philosopher, friend. Answers and all of Chapter 3
Michael Ende: author of The Neverending Story. ELIZA Redux
Deepseek: a Chinese model with opinions on democracy. Sing Together Now
Claude: claude-cli, Anthropic’s model in the terminal, singing along. Sing Together Now
Brian Eno: musician, gardener of generative systems. On Music
Jordan Rudess: keyboardist, lover of technology. On Music
Adam Neely: bassist, on what generative AI does not do. On Music
Jacob Collier: musician, on human perspective and limits. On Music
Albert Einstein: considerer of cosmic religious feeling. Answers