The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI

It was as if utilitarianism had been elevated to an urban art form, the austerity of its surface masking a relentless ambition still in its early stages.

This was my father’s true talent—not engineering, or camera repair, or even puns. He had a virtuosity for unearthing the happiness waiting to be discovered in any situation, no matter how mundane.

Imagine an existence so bereft of sensation that it couldn’t even be described as “dark,” as no corresponding notion of light had yet been conceived. Imagine a world in which nothing is seen, or heard, or felt, rendering the very idea of being alive little more than a metabolic distinction. Imagine a world of beings lacking even a basic sense of se

I’d dedicated my career to trying to understand the nature of the mind; among the greatest honors of my life was the chance to better know the nature of his.

For all our limitations, human perception is the antithesis of this. We see the world holistically, not just identifying but understanding its contents—their relationships, their meanings, their pasts, and their futures. The gist. We aren’t merely witnesses, but storytellers. It felt like it was time for algorithms to learn how to do the same.

For better or worse, my op-ed came in the thick of the “techlash”: a growing consensus that Silicon Valley’s ambitions had reached excessive, even predatory extremes.

When those influences are allowed to change over time, growing stronger or weaker in response to success or failure in completing a task, a network of neurons can, in essence, learn.

The details of the work were, of course, immaterial; it was just the latest testament to the lab’s central values: an abiding respect for the complexity of the world and a hunger to explore it, no matter the cost. We felt like art lovers on a guided museum tour, each new exhibit challenging us while stirring the awe we felt for the boundless detail

As arduous as it could be, there was something illuminating about the process. After thinking so much about the variety of the visual world, I was seeing it in a way I never had before: as a single reality that includes accordions, blenders, cell phones, crayfish, lobsters, pizza, stop signs, umbrellas, and so many other things. There was a kind of