On 3/29/2016 4:15 PM, Craig Berry wrote:

For _Diamond Age_, it's the idea that in the world as portrayed you
would need human actors (rather than a suitable not-quite-AI) to read
material and listen to answers for an interactive children's book. It
doesn't make any sense at all with the other tech present. And the plot
absolutely hinges on that being the case.

The only possibility/justification I can think of is that a human is still cheaper than a similarly capable AI (or that there is no such thing), for such a task.  But it's been so long since I read it that I can't recall if such is the case in the novel's setting.

Compared to that, it was a relatively minor detail for me, one that I suspect was put in just for shock value - that the mixing of nanomaterial from various donors is done inside a live human body, with that unfortunate vessel being literally cooked from the waste heat of the computation.  There is, IMO, absolutely no practical reason why this process couldn't take place in a vat, with no loss of life - aside from, again, what I believe is Stephenson going for shock value with technoprimitivist ritual sacrifice as the excuse.

("Quant suff!")

--
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Kelly St. Clair
xxxxxx@efn.org

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