
Designing a 'Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer' from Diamond Age - arthurjj
https://medium.com/@bethaniemaples/designing-agents-of-change-f2bc7a62919a
======
esrauch
I feel like the article is severely overestimating the state of the art and
the current capabilities of the "big 5".

All of them are working on the most basic fundamental components that are
prerequisites to a Primer and every prerequisite is still pretty far off: no
one can currently build a useful conversational agent (anything beyond query-
and-response of Alexa), no one can really extract useful semantic meaning from
text comments with surrounding context, no one can construct good automatic
customized lessons for 5th graders based on feedback loops. There is no
meaningful version of a primer that can exist without all of those things just
being solved problems.

Given the inability to meaningfully execute in any of those areas, the
challenges listed in the article seem laughably meaningless to me: the problem
of "they won't use it 24/7, so the system wouldn't be able to learn everything
it needs to" is meaningless if we can't make something learn something from
24/7 use. Similarly, a system diagram showing that it would be a book with
sensors and smarts doesn't really seem to be providing any insight at all.

~~~
inimino
I think you're missing the point, which is to develop something that can help
people learn better today and be a starting point for something like the
primer, not to build the primer today. Obviously the technology for the latter
doesn't exist, which is why some creativity is needed in approaching the
problem. The state of the art in guided learning is still textbooks and
lectures, and most applications of technology beyond those have been failures,
but that doesn't mean there are no wins to be had with current technology.

~~~
esrauch
I think it is the exact opposite of that. There is some version that can be
done with current technology, but the challenges for that version are
fundamentally much much more basic than what is discussed here: the article is
basically jumping ahead imagining we had 90% of the technology of the primer
solved and what problems you might face in that hypothetical world where the
remaining constraints being "people don't talk to it enough, otherwise it
would work"

The article mentions several times the concerns about getting enough user
specific data and that it can't be easily bootstrapped by a smaller company
that isn't the "big 5" because others don't have enough data. Except the big 5
can't solve related and easier problems yet with the data they have and a ton
of engineering effort invested. The article ponders whether a primer for the
hardest topics (educated adults) could have enough usage while we can't even
do "make something that usefully, intelligently adapts to teach users even
trivial topics or targeting a single grade of very young children", or
"something that can hold a conversation better than a toddler".

~~~
inimino
I think the author knows and is assuming a lot of what you're pointing out.
The technology for the Primer as such isn't there and won't be until we have
general AI. However, we could build something today with current tech, like a
Kindle that teaches you to read, or teaches you calculus, and it wouldn't be
hard to make a compelling product. There are many possible starting points and
the technology isn't really the problem if the goal is just to make a start.
The real problem is much deeper and the key point is that the Primer was
subversive. How do you organize a consumer product company around a subversive
product? You don't. So how do you fund such a project? These are much bigger
than the technical problems.

There's a reason why Stephenson had the Primer commissioned by an infinitely
rich eccentric and built by a rebel engineer. What I suspect the author is
hinting at by talking about data isn't that the data is hard to get, it is
that for any company in our society with access to that level of resources to
start making machines to mold young minds would be a pretty short road to a
pretty boring dystopia.

------
jaggederest
This is close to the inspiration for the One Laptop Per Child project, as far
as I am aware. YLIP was a major philosophical impetus for it, and it was even
named "Nell" after the main character in Diamond Age.

The Amazon Kindle was also codenamed "Fiona" after another main character,
Fiona Hackworth.

~~~
gumby
> This is close to the inspiration for the One Laptop Per Child project, as
> far as I am aware. YLIP was a major philosophical impetus for it...

The OLPC was actually Nicholas Negroponte's _second_ attempt at getting
inexpensive computing to the developed world; I know because I worked for his
first attempt at the CMIRH in 1982 & 1983\. The Diamond Age wasn't even
published until 1995.

This isn't to say that many OLPC folks weren't inspired by the book, but the
OLPC's inspiration goes much further back.

~~~
na85
Is the OLPC considered a successful endeavor?

~~~
askvictor
In itself, probably not. (though I can't speak for the children and teachers
who have gotten to use them in the real world). However, it changed the
landscape for computing - netbooks, iPads and Chromebooks all arguably descend
from olpc.

~~~
ghaff
That's probably generous. OLPC may have helped create an aspiration for
cheaper portable computers. But netbooks themselves, as originally conceived,
never amounted to much either. iPads are mostly consumption devices. And
Chromebooks, while I'm a personal fan, are a marginal success.

Tech advances have made it possible to buy pretty inexpensive laptops but I'm
not sure how much credit OLPC deserves for that.

~~~
askvictor
OLPC showed that it was possible; before that companies didn't seem to be
interested in seeing if they could. True netbooks never amounted to much, but
they did show that there existed a market for basically a consumption device
(web browser and movie-watcher). Which the iPad took up and make much more
usable.

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jillesvangurp
I love this book. Still very current despite the fact it was published in the
nineties. I re-read most of Neal Stephenson's stuff every few years. Just
finished Anathem, again ;-).

~~~
MrMember
I like Stephenson's writing a lot but i don't know if I could re-read his
books. The frequent, lengthy digressions put me off of reading them again.

~~~
laurentl
I’m currently re-reading Seveneves, and will probably tuck into Cryptonomicon
(for the third time) in the next few months. Neal Stephenson’s books are rich
enough that I usually get a different vibe from them when I read them again.
For instance, on first read I liked the second part of Seveneves better than
the first part, and now it’s the other way around. Maybe it’s due to the fact
that on first read I get sucked in by the plot twists and on later reads I can
enjoy the scenery and pick up different themes.

~~~
Avshalom
Seveneves was deeply traumatizing to me; I don't think Stephenson really
grasps what 5000 years means to some isolated populations.

I don't think I'm ever going to re-read it.

~~~
hideo
Yeah, I was/am a huge fan of his books. Anathem is just an incredible work of
art and deserves every bit of recognition it got if not more.

But REAMDE and Seveneves were just terribly disappointing and a huge letdown
to me. They both seemed shallow and flat compared to the depth of story in his
other books.

I don't think I can think of any other author whose books I both adore and
loathe.

~~~
Avshalom
It's not necessarily that Seveneves felt 'flat' so much as the second half
presents people as basically un changed after millennia which in some cases is
over-lookable and in other cases deeply deeply lacking in empathy.

~~~
toasterlovin
But hadn’t the pingers started to develop adaptations to ocean life? And both
the diggers and the pingers would have a hard time generating novel
adaptations because they were severely population constrained (smaller
population = lower total generation of mutations). And anyway, 5000 years is
enough time for subpopulations to diverge, but it’s not enough time for
subspecies to emerge.

~~~
Avshalom
The spacers adherence to the past struck me as un realistic. The Diggers
though I can't even think of their millennia, the absolute iron rule they had
to maintain to survive... the inescapable fear... well I'm crying as I type
this comment.

~~~
kbenson
> The spacers adherence to the past struck me as un realistic.

I don't know. If you are the last remnants of a great civilization, I can see
that being elevated to the point of religion or near religion, which can help
things persist for quite a long time, since it's longevity is no longer based
on logic.

~~~
gruturo
...and it boils down to a glorified horoscope. Dinans are impulsive Teklans
are reliable etc etc. sigh.

~~~
rtkwe
I look at it this way, each member of that race grew up in a culture that
practically deifies the Eves and the choices they made wrt disposition and
traits, given that the traits are partially drilled into each generation as
they grow up. Toss a bit of (epi)genetic predetermination and it's pretty easy
to see how these groups wind up conforming to stereotypes like that.

Also we're only getting Kathree's view into things too so who's to say how
accurate the strict caricatures actually are?

------
wallflower
> TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it’s almost
> magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully
> interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches
> you morals, ethics, even self-defence.

[http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-
prime...](http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-primer/)

~~~
arthurjj
An interesting take away from the article is that games like Animal Crossing
might be a better staring point for building TYLIP than the methods in the OP
article

~~~
anshuldhawan99
100% agreed. We are taking a game based approach to creating the primer.

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teachrdan
_" Scaling one-on-one tutoring is seen by many experts and researchers as the
silver bullet for human cognitive development"_

While I admire the author's intentions, this is completely the wrong approach.
There are multiple reasons why having actual human tutors is important:

0\. The creation of a deep, long-lasting relationship between tutor and tutee

1\. The benefits to the tutee: the feeling of pride in helping the younger
generation, building empathy and understanding of what the younger generation
is doing

2\. The tutee is inspired to pass along their knowledge to others later in
life; they learn how to tutor by being tutored, thus continuing the cycle

That last point is important. Even if a perfect Primer were created, how would
it improve with time? If it truly replaced tutoring, then the art of tutoring
would be lost forever, and it'd be up to software engineers to determine the
metrics by which to measure the success of the Primer's tutoring algorithm.

Of course, that would never happen. Instead, tutoring by Primer would be
reserved for poor people who didn't have tutors in their lives--or who had
potential tutors who were scared off by the notion that they were not as
effective the Primer. Then, in those communities, organic tutoring--an
institution that has existed since literally the beginning of humanity--would
be amputated and replaced by whatever tutoring the Primer's developers saw
fit.

Real tutoring would, of course, be preserved for the ruling elite. Which I
think is what happens in the book, come to think of it.

Of course I could be completely wrong. But this is the peril of MOOCs in
general: students who go to first-tier schools like Harvard and Oxford get
personalized instruction, while everyone else gets video lectures while
glorified TAs proctor exams.[0]

0\. [https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Professors-at-San-
Jose...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Professors-at-San-Jose/138941)

 _' Professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University are
refusing to teach a philosophy course developed by edX, saying they do not
want to enable what they see as a push to "replace professors, dismantle
departments, and provide a diminished education for students in public
universities."'_

~~~
aidenn0
I haven't read the book in years, but from my recollection, there were three
girls given the Primer; the narrator of the primer was a cloud-provided
mocap/voice actor, running from an AI generated script.

For one of the girls, a single actress performed the majority of it, for the
another it was whomever was available, the third would be a bit of a spoiler,
so I won't say here. This was pointed to as one of the differences, with the
single "tutor" being superior (their socio-economic statuses were far
different as well).

It is true in the book that scaling it for the masses required pure-CG and was
considered significantly inferior. Personalized instruction by an expert in
the field has always been the realm of the privileged, so it's not necessarily
a fault of a technology that it doesn't change this.

~~~
tialaramex
It's not clear that the results for Nell are "better", all three girls who
recieve Runcible in its original form have outcomes as prescribed. They become
independent of the Victorian mainstream. They aren't like the other girls.
Nell founds a new group allied to the Victorians, Fiona is last seen among
secretive London actors in some unspecified undertaking, and Elizabeth joins
CryptNet, whose true purpose is anyone's guess.

The primers given to the Mouse Army are not just Runcible without a ractor.
Hackworth reflexively, even unconsciously proposes something more, he says
something about them being made culturally appropriate or something. Doctor X
doesn't see this for the threat it really is. All those little girls are being
set up by Hackworth to depend on an outside leader, whereas the girls who
receive Runcible are completely independent. And the Mouse Army answer not to
Doctor X or even to Hackworth but to Nell.

~~~
aidenn0
I had missed the point that Hackworth's cultural modifications were what led
to the mouse army. I'll have to read it yet another time.

------
Analemma_
I'm a little troubled that this seems to be completely missing the point of
the Diamond Age (aka, "the Fight Club effect"). The whole lesson of the Young
Lady's Illustrated Primer is that you _shouldn 't make_ the Young Lady's
Illustrated Primer.

~~~
jonathanyc
Strange that you are getting downvoted. The second half of Diamond Age is all
about how Hackworth’s manipulated version of the book, given to the Chinese
orphan girls, causes them to grow up into educated and skilled robots who need
a strong external leader in the form of Nell. Nell’s success comes from the
fact that she was lucky enough to also have strong role models.

This should strike even more alarm bells at a time where we are worrying about
the pernicious effects of social media and maliciously targeted material
(including material targeted to children).

~~~
Jtsummers
I upvoted them. My question was legitimate, because I'd forgotten about this
part:

> the Chinese orphan girls, causes them to grow up into educated and skilled
> robots who need a strong external leader in the form of Nell.

They're capable, skilled individuals with no individuality. At once a positive
(work well together) and a negative (seemingly require external leadership to
direct their efforts). So a downside to the mass adoption of the book.

------
bitwize
An HN story about Croquet (Smalltalk framework) dropped a few years ago.
Someone was like "So, Alan Kay is trying to build the Metaverse?" My response
was, no, Alan Kay is trying to build the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from
The Diamond Age, and always has been. The Metaverse is one of the lemmas he
has to develop in order to get there.

~~~
jecel
And Alan Kay would also cite John McCarthy's Advice Taker as a reference for
such a project, which this article didn't do.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_taker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_taker)

------
8bitsrule
"based on ... (mumble) ...builds on ... learner's existing knowledge "
([https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-
young-...](https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-ladys-
illustrated-primer.html)) is a key part of any such system. A hard part, since
it requires building a map of the student's 'database'. Quizzing without being
too intrusive. And secured.

(Easier than in a classroom. Typically faced with 2-dozen or more students,
the teacher has little idea what curriculum each student has been exposed to.
Assessing the group wrongly means having to go back and start all over. And
the only possible solution still has to be general, not tailored.)

This has been and remains a wonderful dream application. If it's for all, not
just for the privileged, bravo.

------
bmcusick
For mature learners, a prototype they might find useful would be a research
assistant. The AI could work at making sure it understood queries better over
time, then get better at finding answers, then get better at summarizing why
its findings are useful, and finally work on explaining/teaching what it
found.

~~~
hprotagonist
this is more like "the Librarian".

------
oceanghost
I've been working on this for a year or so (unrelated to this article). I
assume the AI will be available at some point in the future. The hard part is
actually the teaching material.

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Tloewald
Seems to me that among other things the writer has completely missed the point
of the Primer was not to educate in the sense they mean it but to _build
character_.

------
graycat
From a post above is

> I feel like the article is severely overestimating the state of the art and
> the current capabilities of the "big 5".

To me this is especially diplomatic!

From the OP

> Obviously we have the Primer,

WHAT?????? What do "we have"? Where is this "Primer" that "we have"?????

What here is "obvious"?

IMHO this might as well been written in Russian, and there I don't even know
the alphabet!

For decades we've had multiple choice tests. Is THAT what she's talking about
that "we have"?

So, could write a computer program that asks multiple choice questions and for
wrong answers displays some background tutorial material. Is THAT what she has
in mind?

She keeps saying "AI", that is, "artificial intelligence": Just what more
specifically does she have in mind? Curve fitting with networks of sigmoid
functions, with regression trees, with versions of regression?

------
germinalphrase
So much of education when a child is young is made up of non-academic
cognitive skills. How do you shape and react to a child's human interactions -
and the associated cognitive skills - via any kind of media or device? It's
hard enough for trained human beings...

~~~
schoen
In _The Diamond Age_ , it was very advanced AI that included software
specifically aimed at social interactions -- plus a kind of trust fund that
paid for hiring "racters" (character actors) in certain circumstances.

~~~
QuercusMax
I always though "racters" was short for "interactors", but it could be either
one...

~~~
rtkwe
I think it's a bit of both the 'shows'/programs are called "'ractives" clearly
for interactives, from there we can get ractors from interactors or just a
perversion of actors in ractives.

------
mgleason_3
Wow, for a mature mind :), that was a lot to absorb.

It’s interesting to see an overview of the current state of art. Still, its
too bad the conclusion is that only the big 5 have a chance (Google, Facebook,
...)

------
chaostheory
Why limit it to a 'book'? I feel that the people behind the movie Her has hit
it and it's the design that everyone is trying to make real.

------
digi_owl
One of those books i simply noped out of after the n-th time it diverged into
lala-land.

Stephenson may know his technical stuff, but it does in no way make him able
to write interesting books.

