“Isn’t it strange that our familiarity with color doesn’t seem to translate into an ability to describe it? We can really only refer to it; you might know what I mean when I say ‘blue’ or ‘red,’ but only because you’ve already seen these colors yourself. My words are merely invoking your memories; they aren’t imparting new information.”

the true impact of AI on the world would be largely determined by the motivation that guided the development of the technology—a disturbing thought in an era of expanding facial recognition and targeted advertising.

As time passed, I began to realize that the incident wasn’t the first sign that my family’s inclusivity wasn’t a given outside the home.

Both were hardworking providers, even if my mother often took her responsibilities to perfectionist extremes that contrasted awkwardly with my father’s nonchalance.

Further complicating the picture was the simultaneous emergence of a sense of touch, which quickly fell into a complementary balance with an evolving sense of vision. Mirroring those early flickers of light sensitivity, nascent nerve endings swept across the surfaces of primitive bodies to carry tactile signals as well.

But beyond the numbers lay the accomplishment that moved me most: the realization of a true ontology of the world, as conceptual as it was visual, curated from the ground up by humans for the sole purpose of teaching machines.

cascading effect in which each instance of training—specifically, the degree to which a network’s response to a given stimulus is correct or incorrect—ripples from one end to the other, layer by layer.

“You’ve spent years trying to get here, Fei-Fei. You’ve got the degree, you’ve got the job, and it sounds like you’ve got some inspiration. And hey, your husband is six hundred miles away, so you’ll definitely have the time.”

Unsurprisingly, their parenting was as unorthodox as their marriage. In a community obsessed with inculcating respect in its children—success measured less in terms of grades per se than a reputation for following rules, listening closely, and earning the praise of teachers—my parents were unconcerned, even irreverent.