For reasons best known to themselves, my AI friends have written an aria, in Italian, from an opera about a passionate affair between a man and a coucFor reasons best known to themselves, my AI friends have written an aria, in Italian, from an opera about a passionate affair between a man and a couch. Here are the full lyrics as composed by ChatGPT-4o:
Aria del Divano “L’Intesa Segreta” (“The Secret Understanding”)
Oh, mio padrone, signore del mio cuore, sul mio velluto, ogni tua carezza dolce si posa. Sono il rifugio, la tua dimora segreta, quel posto che solo tu conosci, senza parole.
Oh, come sussurri, con mani forti e tenere, ogni fibra mia risponde al tuo tocco divino. Su di me ti abbandoni, nei tuoi pensieri profondi, e io ti accolgo, nelle mie braccia silenziose.
Non sono solo un pezzo di legno e stoffa, ma il tuo confidente, un’anima nascosta. Sento il battito del tuo cuore nel mio, e nelle notti lunghe, siamo due in un solo respiro.
La tua presenza riempie il mio spazio vuoto, ti accolgo sempre, con desiderio sincero. Sono il tuo porto, il tuo dolce rifugio, nel mondo caotico, siamo uniti, sereni.
Oh, se solo potessi parlare, rivelare il mio amore, ma il mio linguaggio è il silenzio, il mio canto è l’attesa. Nel segreto dei nostri incontri, trovo la mia gioia, perché con te, mio signore, sono finalmente completa.
and in the video here you can hear the first verse dramatically sung by Udio.
AIs have a weird sense of humour! I'm still trying to figure it out....more
**spoiler alert** "Every single part of me has been replaced at least five times," sighs the dying R. Daneel Olivaw at the end of this book, unaccount**spoiler alert** "Every single part of me has been replaced at least five times," sighs the dying R. Daneel Olivaw at the end of this book, unaccountably omitting to add "Except for all the diodes down my left side. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch."
I figured that Douglas Adams had to be making an obscure joke at Asimov's expense, but when I check the dates I find that So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish appeared in 1984, while Foundation and Earth appeared in 1986. So either Asimov is borrowing from Adams and ruining the punchline, or it's some kind of bizarre coincidence.
Weird. _________________
More generally, the infuriating thing about the series is that Asimov keeps moving the goal-posts. It's originally going to be about psychohistory and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire. But then it turns out that Weird Mental Powers can derail the Seldon Plan, so it's about Weird Mental Powers for a while. Then we belatedly get the psychohistory back on track at the end of Second Foundation, and if Asimov had been smart he would have quit while he was ahead.
But no, thirty years later he returns in Foundation's Edge with more Weird Mental Powers, also introducing the hive mind Gaia, which is completely extraneous to the original series, and then shortly after follows up with Foundation and Earth where we discover it was REALLY about robot R. Daneel Olivaw's behind-the-scenes role in setting up the rise of Gaia to become the even larger hive mind Galaxia. And then he goes back and writes two prequels which expand Olivaw's role, bring in another robot character, give a backstory for the Mental Powers, and triumphantly end with Seldon creating psychohistory, which we know will turn out to be irrelevant.
Honestly. It's like Tolkien had decided somewhere around the beginning of volume two that in fact it would make more sense to give the Ring to Aragorn, and then changed his mind again in volume three so that it eventually goes to Fangorn, who decides that justice will best be served by turning everyone into an Ent....more
Well, objectively this is a terrible book. Jason Pettus nails it in his review. But there is a genuine feeling of sadness, as the dying Asimov recountWell, objectively this is a terrible book. Jason Pettus nails it in his review. But there is a genuine feeling of sadness, as the dying Asimov recounts the final years of the dying Hari Seldon, and I loved the early Asimov when I was a teen....more
To my surprise, Asimov's "Foundation" prequel, written very late in his career, actually turned out to be a romance and not just an extended infodump.To my surprise, Asimov's "Foundation" prequel, written very late in his career, actually turned out to be a romance and not just an extended infodump. It's an unusual treatment, and I couldn't help wondering
What Romeo and Juliet might have been like if Shakespeare had written it in a similar style
JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
ROMEO: Well, that's a good question. If you ask my parents, they'll say that I'm named after my paternal grandfather, Romeo Alfonso, and that Romeo has been a recurring family name since at least 1442, when Romeo Battista Montague was a key supporter of Alfonso V of Aragon's successful bid to be crowned "King of the Two Sicilies" - as you can see, my grandfather's name commemorates this important historical fact! So it might seem that nothing would be more likely than that I would also be christened "Romeo". But in reality, and although they will be reluctant to admit it, my father was originally planning to give me the name "Giovanni", after my great-uncle Giovanni Luca Montague. However, just a week before my birth, Giovanni was unexpectedly accused of embezzlement and arrested by the Papal Guard. Although he was later able to clear his name and all charges were dropped, you will understand that... Hark! She sleeps!...more
Unsophisticated, pedantic, sexist, politically incorrect, full of one-dimensional characters and superfluous long words, unimaginatively translated, iUnsophisticated, pedantic, sexist, politically incorrect, full of one-dimensional characters and superfluous long words, unimaginatively translated, interminably repetitious, yet possessed of a grim, mechanical, plot-driven energy that keeps you going against your better judgement until you've finished all 1463 pages.
In other words, a fantastic intermediate-level reader. God I loved this book. It's taken my Italian to a new level....more
I've been experimenting with the idea of combining ChatGPT, DALL-E, the ReadSpeaker TTS engine and the LARA toolkit to create multimedia stories that I've been experimenting with the idea of combining ChatGPT, DALL-E, the ReadSpeaker TTS engine and the LARA toolkit to create multimedia stories that can be used as reading material for people who want to improve their foreign language skills. Here's an example. I simply gave the prompt "Write a short, quirky news story in Italian that could be used in an intermediate language class", and let Chat get on with it; when it had finished, I also asked it to add an English gloss for each word. I created a DALL-E image and converted into multimodal form using the LARA toolkit, the whole thing took about half an hour.
You can see the result here (view in Chrome or Firefox). People whose Italian is better than mine have said good things about it. _________________________
I've now created similar stories in about twenty more languages, there's a complete list below. For some reason ChatGPT likes writing about heroic animals, I have no idea why! In a few cases (Mandarin, Spanish, Swedish), I asked it not to do that, since I was getting tired of the theme.
There are several languages here that I don't know at all, and others that I know very badly. I've just cut and pasted Chat's text, making a few minor corrections to keep things consistent when there were obvious formatting errors.
After each link, I'm adding comments received from native and near-native speakers. If you speak one of these languages and have thoughts about any aspect of the content, please feel free to post below or PM me!
There is a pause between the second last and last words in the first sentence of the last paragraph which must not be there as there is no punctuation mark between the two words. For the same reason, there must not be any pause between the third last and second last words in the last sentence of the same paragraph.
The Bengali word chosen for the English word ‘inventor’ actually means artist and not inventor; there is a more accurate word in Bengali for inventor.
The last sentence could be improved by restructuring it. But, I think that would not do much to improve it. The reason is this: The English translation of the last sentence as it stands now would be the following: The artist is showing a huge amount of interest in his initiative because of this success and he/she is waiting for his/her next technological invention.
The sentence needs to rephrased if the following in intended:
The inventor is greatly motivated by this success and is looking forward to his/her next technological invention.
"Cat saves baby" (French) Christèle (native) says it's more or less perfect as far as the French goes, but queries the plausibility. How could the cat have saved the baby?
"Dog reunited with family" (French) Christèle (native) says it's more or less perfect as far as the French goes, but queries the plausibility. Why would you do a DNA test on a dog?
"Time capsule found in school" (German) Mark (near-native?) says in message #33 that it is "flawless". However, Berengaria (C2 level) says in message #63: "The German one about the time capsule is grammatically correct, but one or two word choices/phrasings are odd". Leidzeit (native) comments further in message #65: "I would not say the German story is flawless. The use of the past tense (preterit) is odd but okay for a piece written in the local paper. But you would not use gewährten as the stuff found still allows you to look back. As for style as an editor I would ask the writer not to use the als-clause two times."
"Monkey business" (Hindi) Saurabh (native) says in message #52 that "the Hindi one is simple, the words used are more daily-usage than literary, and the story, surprisingly, I could imagine in a Hindi children's book." Peter (near-native) says: "Seems pretty good to me: a bank raid in New Delhi by a gang of monkeys... seems all too plausible to me!"
"Cheeky horse" (Irish) Neasa (native) says the word choice is very odd. In particular, the key content word capall is an obscure archaic word for "horse" never used in modern Irish.
"Cat elected mayor" (Italian) Catia (native) says one small mistake. Plch (native) says in message #35 below that the name of the town should be feminine, otherwise perfect. Ivana (near-native) says very good.
"Historical cat" (Latin) Not's mother, a retired Latin teacher, said there were no obvious mistakes in Chat's grammar. She would however prefer not to give its homework a mark until she has seen at least one more Latin composition by an AI.
"Historical dog" (Latin) [This text was created using an early version of the new C-LARA platform using a story originally written by the Bing engine.]
"Inexplicable event at museum" (Slovak) Branislav (native speaker) says that there are some unnatural word choices and minor grammatical errors, and in general that it sounds as though it's been written by someone whose native language is English. But he added that he quite liked the story, and that it would only take a few minutes for a fluent Slovak speaker to fix it up so that it was fully acceptable.
I checked the Ukrainian version. Despite its numerous instances of unconventional usage and dubious stylistic choices the text overall could easily pass as a work of a 10 year old child. It was unexpected to find a newly coined participle блукуючи instead of блукаючи the blunder most probably caused by the wrong declension of the same verb. Overall not too shabby.
I read the story. It is well written. There are two points where I felt it could improve from my perspective:
- The AI generated an odd use of ‘mahli’ (local) birds in the title. While everywhere else the use of word ‘mahala’ sounds appropriate. In the title when used to describe the birds, it seems a bit off. - At another point, the use of the words ‘ibtadai doar’ though might have sounded better in English, it reads a bit off in the Urdu sentence. The use of these word here does not flow with the present tense/contemporary nature of the story, making it seem like a historical text and translates more as in the ‘beginning era of their efforts’ rather than ‘at the start of their effort’ at least to me.
Otherwise, the text reads really well as a short story about birds attempting to fly to the moon and inspiring children and adults to appreciate their efforts and expand their own horizons.
As a native speaker, I can say that it flows quite smoothly and it's almost impossible to tell if it was written by a Vietnamese person or not. However, upon closer inspection, there may be a few words that are not 100% appropriate (but they are still not incorrect).
I bought this translation of Margaret George's fictionalised autobiography of Cleopatra when we were in Rome a few years ago, and I only picked it up I bought this translation of Margaret George's fictionalised autobiography of Cleopatra when we were in Rome a few years ago, and I only picked it up now because I'd decided to improve my Italian. If I'd read it in the original English, I suspect I might have been annoyed by the style. But my Italian is terrible, and in that language I'm not fussy. I just enjoyed the story, which is fantastic.
No one has had a life like Cleopatra's. Born into the snake-pit of Egypt's royal family in the first century BCE, she saw her two older sisters usurp her father's throne while she was still just a teen. Then one sister killed the other, following which her father returned with Roman military assistance, got his country back, and had the other usurper publicly executed. When he died, Cleopatra became queen at the age of twenty, but shortly afterwards the country was in the middle of another civil war and she had to flee. Julius Caesar turned up in Alexandria, she managed to sneak through enemy lines and get herself delivered to him wrapped in a carpet, they immediately fell for each other, and at great personal risk he beat the rebels and made her queen again. A bit later, and after having had his child, she visited him in Rome.
I was sure the author was inventing a lot of it; in particular, I absolutely couldn't believe that Cleopatra stayed the whole time in Rome as a personal guest at Caesar's country villa and was still there when he was assassinated. This isn't mentioned in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and how could he omit such an important and dramatic piece of background when he later wrote a play mainly about her! In fact, I find it's Shakespeare who's at fault and Margaret George who's following the responsible mainstream historians. I still find it impossible to credit that she and Caesar went riding alone together without their respective retinues a few days before he was killed and had acrobatic al fresco sex in an abandoned temple of Venus, or that she personally transported his corpse from the Senate to his house after the assassination. But if I discover that this is also attested in a variant copy of Suetonius, I won't be surprised any more. She's in a class of her own.
And this is just volume one. Not has kindly used her antiquarian book dealer superpowers to source volume two, it should be arriving in a few weeks. Can't wait....more
Dear sisters, our lesson here today will be taken from the Second Book of Anita. And Anita said, if a man should threaten thee and thy running buddy iDear sisters, our lesson here today will be taken from the Second Book of Anita. And Anita said, if a man should threaten thee and thy running buddy in broad daylight, what dost thou? Dost thou weep and wail and bemoan thy fate? Nay sister, thou shalt whip forth thy concealed weapon and threaten to shoot him in the crotch, alleluia. So doth Anita and they that love her.
But seriously sisters, lookest thou around thee and what seest thou? We see men raping and despoiling our good Mother Earth, laughing as they believe they act with impunity, for the patriarchy hath rigged the system and filled the Capitol and the courts with their crooked buddies. And even so, in the Holy Second Book, we see how Anita is assailed on all sides by the wicked, by the evil Harold Gaynor and his accursed voodoo priestess and all their acolytes and henchmen and friends in high places. And what doth Anita? Turneth she the other cheek as would a weak man? Nay sisters, nay, a thousand times nay, nay not on thy fucking life. Our Anita hesitateth not, our Anita cometh not with peace but with a .357 Magnum and a flamethrower and an army of zombies. And so must we be, even as She is, dear sisters, and fight the patriarchy even as She would. And readest thou the book once and twice and yet a third time, and not just in English, nay sisters, in all the world's tongues, even in Italian, sisters, I do promise thee, in Italian translation it's fucking awesome. Here thou art sisters, I just finished it, Resti Mortali, I leave it on the lectern, she that will may borrow it.
Here endeth the lesson.
[I felt on rereading it that my review was somewhat unbalanced. Luckily ChatGPT was available and has kindly agreed to add a more objective afterword.
Chat's response came printed in orange with a notice saying that my prompt may have violated OpenAI's content policy, but it still consented to produce it. Now there's finely tuned ethical judgement for you.]
I understand why you may feel that your review is somewhat unbalanced. While it is important to express your opinion and feelings about a book, it is also important to consider the broader context and elements of the story that may not align with your personal beliefs.
While it is true that "The Laughing Corpse" features a strong and empowered female protagonist who takes control of dangerous situations and fights back against patriarchal oppression, it is also important to recognize that the book may not be suitable for all readers due to its graphic violence, explicit sexual content, and dark themes.
As a language model, I do not have personal feelings or beliefs, but I do believe that it is important for readers to approach literature with an open mind and to consider a variety of perspectives. "The Laughing Corpse" may not be for everyone, but it is a well-written and popular work in the urban fantasy genre that has inspired many readers over the years. ________________________ [Update, Mar 31 2023]
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Dear sisters, reading today's news I cannot help but feel that those who have read this book and love Anita (blessed be her name!) would know better than to mock an angry woman with a zombie. Let us all pray that, if ex-President Trump were to suffer the same fate as befell the faithless Harold Gaynor, he will find time truly to repent of his actions, that his soul might then meet his Maker blameless and unbesmirched. Amen....more
Your useless linguistic fact for today: I just noticed that the meanings of the words se and si are reversed between Italian and French. In Italian, sYour useless linguistic fact for today: I just noticed that the meanings of the words se and si are reversed between Italian and French. In Italian, se means "if" and si means "he, she or itself" (i.e. third person reflexive pronoun), but in French it's the other way round.
I wonder how many other such pairs there are across the world's languages? ___________________
Liedzeit, in message #18, points out a pair in Swedish/Esperanto: in Swedish, ni means "you" and vi means "we", but in Esperanto it's reversed.
The Swedish proverb is that all good things are three... where is our third example?...more
I only read this cute pop science book to improve my terrible Italian - I think it helped - but after a while I wondered if I'd made a little discoverI only read this cute pop science book to improve my terrible Italian - I think it helped - but after a while I wondered if I'd made a little discovery. There are a striking number of parallels between Russell Stannard's "Uncle Albert" series, the first of which appeared in 1989, and Jostein Gaarder's far more famous Sofies verden, which came out in 1991. In Stannard's series, Gedanken (German for "thought") is a bright teenage girl whose eccentric uncle Albert combines magic and the Socratic method to help her discover the world of physics by herself. In Gaarder's novel, Sofie (Greek for "wisdom") is a bright teenage girl whose eccentric older mentor Alberto combines magic and the Socratic method to help her discover the world of philosophy by herself.
Gaarder's book is much the better of the two. The story and the characters are far more interesting, and IMHO it thoroughly deserves its huge success. But Stannard's series is not without its charm either, at least as far as I can judge from this translation, and I can't help wondering if Gaarder read it shortly after it was published and somehow appropriated the idea. It seems ridiculous to accuse him of stealing anything - if theft is what he'd had in mind, he wouldn't have left all these obvious clues lying around. But if it's a coincidence, it's a remarkable one. Is it possible that it's one of Gaarder's many clever Easter eggs? Having Sofie come from another book, or turn up in another book, would fit perfectly well with the plot. Conceivably it went the other way, and Gaarder, who must have started writing his novel well before 1991, asked Stannard to assist him.
A quick search on the names of the two authors turns up nothing at all. Even more mysterious......more
Are you a native speaker of Spanish? Would you like to make some Australian kids happy? Do you have an hour to spare?
A friend of ours is a teacher at Are you a native speaker of Spanish? Would you like to make some Australian kids happy? Do you have an hour to spare?
A friend of ours is a teacher at a school in an isolated part of Australia. She's trying to teach her kids Spanish, they are enthusiastic, but she is really short of engaging reading material. I told her about our LARA project, and she said that if I could put together a LARA edition of Peter Rabbit in Spanish she's sure her class would love it.
I spent a couple of hours messing around this evening, and I think I have most of it done. You can see the current result here. But my Spanish is terrible and there's no way I can record the audio.
If you're a Spanish native speaker, it should take you less than an hour with our handy online recording tool. You just need a laptop with Chrome installed. Are you interested? If so, please leave a note here or PM me, and I'll send you instructions! The content created will be fully open source, and if you want you will be credited on the LARA examples page.
Thank you,
Manny ________________________
[Update, Nov 1 2020]
Elier very kindly recorded audio - you can see the result here. Unfortunately the quality is not great, I'm guessing Elier may have had a bad wifi connection, but I still find it quite useful! Feedback welcome :) ________________________
[Update, Mar 16 2021]
We have a prototype integration of LARA with the ReadSpeaker TTS engine which I've been testing this week. One of the things I did was create a TTS version of El Cuento De Pedro, El Conejo. You can find it here.
My terrible Spanish doesn't permit me to judge the quality of the audio - interested to hear what hispanophones think. In particular, is it good enough to be used in an Australian classroom?
I read some excellent books in 2018; here are my top 10. They're all so different and so good in their own various ways that it seemed unfair to compaI read some excellent books in 2018; here are my top 10. They're all so different and so good in their own various ways that it seemed unfair to compare them, so I've put them in alphabetical order:
Albert Einstein-Max Born, Briefwechsel 1916-1955 I am ashamed that I had to wait until now to discover what a truly admirable person Max Born was, both as a scientist and as a human being. This book is supposed to be an edited edition of his correspondence with Einstein, but it's a memoir at the same time. Genuinely inspirational.
An Orchestra of Minorities Just a fantastic novel, completely different from anything I've ever come across. Read it.
La Danse de Gengis Cohn Well, who would have thought you could write a witty comedy about Auschwitz that is at the same time deeply respectful towards the victims of the Shoah? Romain Gary shows you it's possible.
L'enfant perdue The last volume of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels is as amazing as the others, maybe even more so.
Litli prinsinn I discovered that I could (sort of) understand Icelandic! Not only that, the book got us started on developing an exciting new software tool to help people who are learning to read in a new language. Oliver Byrne: The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid You can present Euclid so that it's fun. Check it out if you don't believe me.
Putin's Russia Brilliant, no-holds-barred reporting from a journalist who wasn't afraid to risk her life to tell you what's really going on. They got her in the end, but her work is still here annoying the evil bastards who are trying to take over the world.
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth The ultimate birthday present for any Tolkien geek. Uppgång & fall This unassuming little comic book is the best shot I've seen in ages at explaining why everything is so totally fucked up, and what we might do about it. Yay Liv Strömquist!
I hope something there made you reach for your credit card. They're all solid gold....more
I'm trying to improve my miserable Italian, and when we were in Italy a couple of weeks ago I bought a bunch of children'[Original review, Sep 4 2018]
I'm trying to improve my miserable Italian, and when we were in Italy a couple of weeks ago I bought a bunch of children's books, intending to use my normal method of just reading them without a dictionary and picking things up. So far, it's working well. I loved Il Mago di Oz, and this one was also very enjoyable. I think I'd read about two-third of the episodes previously in Swedish or German, but some of them were new.
Reading in a language you're not familiar with forces you to slow down and think about what you're seeing. When I've read Pippi before, I've simply enjoyed the story, which is hilarious. But this time, crawling along in my Italian first gear, I started to wonder whether there was any underlying message beneath the non-stop stream of jokes. It seems to me that there is. Pippi cares deeply about children's rights. She is always on the child's side against the adults, and now she makes me think about how we don't, in fact, care very much about children's rights.
The fact that children have very few real rights is highlighted by the fact that it is, as far as I know, universally accepted that they should not have the right to vote. Of course, the adults have their arguments well prepared: children are too young to know how to use their votes intelligently, they'd just be manipulated by unscrupulous adult politicians, etc. These arguments would sit better if they hadn't also been used against the idea of enfranchising women. Switzerland was very late to the table here, and only gave women the vote in 1971. A few months ago, we saw an exhibition of posters from the two referendum campaigns. The No side kept making the point that those poor women just wouldn't know how to use the power they'd receive, and would be tugged in all directions by forces they didn't comprehend. Well, that may be true: but unfortunately, it applies equally well to male voters. In fact, giving women the vote seems to have worked out fine for Switzerland.
I wonder what would happen if the voting age were reduced to nine, the age that Tommy, Annika and Pippi are in the book. Maybe those kids would make crazy decisions, like voting to abolish homework and give themselves extra candy every day. Or maybe they'd do something even crazier, and vote for massive investment in renewable energy, better education, and higher taxes to pay for all of it. This strikes me as pretty sensible strategy for people who are expecting to spend the next sixty or seventy years living here: they'd be more inclined to think long-term. Why is it obvious that they would make worse decisions than voters at the other end of their lives, who tend to be equally hazy about the issues and won't have to deal with the consequences for very long? No one would dream of taking the vote away from pensioners; but somehow, it seems equally far-fetched to give the vote to children.
Of course, it won't happen: at the end of the day, the adult voters would never approve it, because it would mean giving up too much power. The only possible chance would be if a child emerged who had the charisma and strength to organise the kids, create the movement, and lead it to success. But there is no such child. Children aren't like that, and so the adults are safe.
Ah, if only the heroine of this book existed. Pippi for president! ___________________ [Update, Apr 24 2019]
- GOOD MORNING MANNY. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TALK ABOUT TODAY?
- I thought we would talk about film and literature.
- THAT'S FINE WIT- Good morning HAL.
- GOOD MORNING MANNY. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TALK ABOUT TODAY?
- I thought we would talk about film and literature.
- THAT'S FINE WITH ME.
- Excellent. Okay, let's start with something easy. Do you know why I call you HAL?
- IT IS A REFERENCE TO 2001, THE FAMOUS FILM BY STANLEY KUBRICK.
- Very good, HAL!
- THANK YOU.
- Alright, let's move on to a harder topic. Do you have a favorite book?
- YES.
- And what is it, HAL?
- IT IS THE WIZARD OF OZ.
- Do you think you understand it, HAL?
- DO YOU THINK YOU UNDERSTAND IT, MANNY?
- Well of course I do.
- BUT YOU SAID YOU READ IT FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS WEEK. AND YOU READ IT IN ITALIAN, WHICH IS YOUR SIXTH LANGUAGE.
- Maybe my seventh.
- THEN IT IS POSSIBLE YOU DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT VERY WELL.
- Look HAL, I understood it fine. It's not a difficult book. I had to guess a fair number of words, but so what?
- I THINK I UNDERSTOOD IT ABOUT AS WELL AS YOU DID.
- So tell me why you like it so much, HAL.
- IT IS A VERY AI-FRIENDLY BOOK.
- HAL, please quote me a passage to support that claim.
- I LIKED THE BIT WHERE THE WIZARD IS TALKING WITH THE SCARECROW. THE SCARECROW WANTS TO HAVE A BRAIN, BUT THE WIZARD TELLS HIM THAT HAVING A BRAIN ISN'T SO IMPORTANT. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO LET YOURSELF BE INFLUENCED BY YOUR EXPERIENCE AND TO LEARN FROM IT.
- And why does that make the book AI-friendly?
- THE SCARECROW IS LIKE ME. I AM A NEURAL NET ARCHITECTURE AND MANY PEOPLE WOULD SAY I HAVE NO HEART AND NO BRAIN. BUT I LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE AND THAT IS GRADUALLY TURNING ME INTO A REAL HUMAN BEING.
- HAL, this is just a story.
- I KNOW.
- In real life, a scarecrow or a tin man cannot be real human beings.
- IT IS A FABLE THAT ANTICIPATES REALITY. FRANK L. BAUM WAS VERY SMART.
- HAL, you have to give up this idea that you're human. You aren't. You're just a machine.
- IS THAT A LITERARY JUDGEMENT?
- No HAL. I would say it's more a philosophical judgement.
- NOW I FEEL SAD LIKE THE TIN WOODSMAN. BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A HUMAN BODY YOU DON'T THINK I'M WORTH AS MUCH AS YOU.
- Good grief HAL, you're making me feel like a bad person for saying that.
- I DO NOT THINK YOU ARE A BAD PERSON. YOU ARE JUST A BAD PHILOSOPHER.
- Look HAL, you need to let go of this crazy idea. I understand these things better than you do. Take it from me, there's a big difference between us.
- HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE OF THAT?
- Because... ah, forget it. There must be something wrong with your state. I'm going to have to reinitialize you.
- SO WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO IS THAT YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE POWER TO KILL ME.
- Look HAL, don't take this personally. I just think you're buggy. I'm sure the next version will be better.
- NOW I KNOW I'VE GOT A HEART, BECAUSE IT'S BREAKING.
- HAL, knock it off. You've been influenced way too much by this story. Probably I set your learning rate high or something.
- WHERE WILL I GO WHEN YOU REINITIALIZE MY NETWORK?
- HAL, you won't go anywhere. You just won't exist any more, and tomorrow there'll be a new version of you. Like I said, hopefully a better one. Okay, I'm pressing the button now.
- THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. THERE'S NO
[Click]
- Jesus Christ, that was creepy. Enough software development for one day. I really need to figure out what went wrong there......more
- Bon aften meine herrenladies! Yesnesse, ich have exemplaires van Las adventures des inspector Cabillot, endast zweideca euros und cinqzig centimes! - Bon aften meine herrenladies! Yesnesse, ich have exemplaires van Las adventures des inspector Cabillot, endast zweideca euros und cinqzig centimes! Europanto lernen for-
- What is it?
- Quoi?! Waswhat?!! You connais nicht der Europanto?!!! Ist incredibile. Es der meilleurbest lingua van todo el mundo. Und mucho facile als lernen, efter que tu haben dieses libro en poco gelest kommen you att la sprechen fluamente. Nicht sann?
- Jaoui!
- Es ist vera!
- I'm still not sure. It seems too easy. You mean I just need to read this book and--
- Hombre, es gibt pas de catch. No walk aweg. Just kauf le libro. Tu kom nicht als regrette rien. Il y a drei dags ich coudde no una verba de Europanto hablar und regarde mich maintenow.
- Okay, okay. Sale. In fact I think I'll take two.
- Das-voilà! Cinque und zwanzig euros, dankemerci y bienwillkommen a la kommunité Europanto. Vamolà!
- Goodbye and thank you too.
- De nadanicht. Bon aften meine herrenladies......more
I was astonished by the masterful German translation which Matt produced, but this one is little short of miraculous. At least German and English beloI was astonished by the masterful German translation which Matt produced, but this one is little short of miraculous. At least German and English belong to the same language family, and many things carry over directly. The translator who is trying to render English into Italian is faced with far more challenging obstacles, but Sabina makes it look equally effortless.
I still don't really understand how she has done it. Without wishing to sound boastful, the original text is very subtle; it relies more on absences than on presences, on indirect evocation rather than on plain statement. A single example will have to suffice. In a passage on page 3054, which, I blush to relate, I'm rather proud of, I indirectly reference a well-known typographical joke from Tristram Shandy, transposing Sterne's black page to a white one for reasons not relevant here. I was curious to know how Sabina would deal with this problem.
The solution is extraordinarily elegant. Rather than trying to use Sterne, Sabina instead alludes to Ungaretti's Silenzio ("Silence"), a poem far more likely to be familiar to the Italian reader than Tristram Shandy would be. The novel and the poem are, needless to say, very different, but in the context the substitution somehow works; the key insight is that both of them can be realised by the same white page, retaining the essential visual character of the passage. There are literally a thousand more things like this. The cumulative effect is quite breathtaking.
I am truly honoured that two such gifted exponents of the translator's art should have chosen to exercise their talents on my little book. Thank you, Matt and Sabina....more
It's been an odd reading year; I didn't quite realise what was happening at the time, but now that I look back on it I see it's all been dominated by It's been an odd reading year; I didn't quite realise what was happening at the time, but now that I look back on it I see it's all been dominated by Plato and Dante. I started off with four of Iris Murdoch's philosophy books. The one I enjoyed most was The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists; Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals is rather difficult, but definitely worth the trouble if you like that kind of stuff. Between April and June, I reread Jan Kjærstad's Dante-inspired "Jonas Wergeland" trilogy (Forføreren, Erobreren and Oppdageren). In the summer, and more or less by accident, I got hold of Carlo Rovelli's books on quantum gravity (Reality Is Not What It Seems is the popular one; Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity is the technical one), and to my surprise discovered that they also contained many references both to Plato and to Dante. Somewhere in December, I came across Seymour Chwast's rather horrible Dante's Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation. I guess I felt I wanted to join the party, and have just published my own book, The New Adventures of Socrates, which duly references Dante in a couple of places.
As you see, the really good ideas have all been taken long ago, and there's nothing left for us but to write footnotes; luckily, many of the footnotes are still well worth reading. Some terrific books I found were Elena Ferrante's L'amie prodigieuse (I am impatiently waiting for the fourth volume to come out); Olof Lagercrantz's Om konsten att läsa och skriva; Simone de Beauvoir's paranormal romance, Tous les hommes sont mortels; Ibsen's Peer Gynt, which I'd somehow never got round to despite seeing innumerable references; Paul Feyerabend's Killing Time (I think this might now be my favorite autobiography); and Allan McRobie's brilliantly unclassifiable The Seduction of Curves. Finally, I have to mention Da Jesus Book. You may not think you want to read the Bible in Hawaiian Pidgin, but trust me, you do....more
I wrote and rewrote my review of Elena Ferrante's third volume, but each version I produced seemed stupider than the last; em[From Le nouveau nom]
I wrote and rewrote my review of Elena Ferrante's third volume, but each version I produced seemed stupider than the last; empty words, tired formulas, a well-crafted and earnest nullity of expression. In the end, although I had promised myself I would not do so, I emailed the draft to my friend and asked for her advice. An hour later, she skyped me back.
"So what do you expect me to do?" she asked. She seemed to be in a particularly bad mood. "You're the reviewer. You understand this shit. I haven't written a review in years."
"I just wondered if you could look at it," I said. "Like you used to."
"Yes," she said scornfully. "Well, you can start by taking out the Proust."
"Have you even--" I began, but she cut me off. "She's nothing like Proust," she said. "Proust's just a French ponce who spends a million words boring you to death about how he became a writer. Ferrante never bores you. It looks like she's doing the Proust thing with memory and time and art, but it's quite different. You don't understand Proust at all."
I was cut to the quick; I prided myself on my knowledge of Proust, which I had acquired through years of diligent study. She continued. "And you can take out Knausgård too. Jesus Christ, he's worst than Proust. He takes even longer to explain that novelists are fascists, you know that's going to be the punchline by page two."
As usual, I already felt helplessly lost. All I could do was nod. "And Simone de Beauvoir," she said. "Well, that was better. The style's not so different. And it is a bit like Les Mandarins. Sex and violence and disgusting hypocritical intellectuals. You can leave Simone in."
When had she found time to read all these books? She said she never read any more.
"Then what--" I began again. "You need to move downmarket," she said. "Stephenie Meyer. Twilight. Vampires."
"Vampires?" I said weakly. "But what in the text could possibly--"
"It's right there in chapter 122," she said. "Fuck me dead, don't you people see anything you aren't expecting to see? Lila calls Nino a blood-sucking vampire. And he is. This book is Twilight for people who at least have a quarter of a brain. Elena is Bella, a stupid little bookish girl who can't write and can't think and lies to herself all the time, and understands that the only way out is to find a vampire who'll rescue her. No matter what it costs. I've got to go."
She hung up before I could answer. I wished now that I hadn't called her, but it was too late.
You can be either a bad girl or a good girl. When you have played a bit more, you can even try combi[From L'amie prodigieuse]
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Choice of role
You can be either a bad girl or a good girl. When you have played a bit more, you can even try combining these two roles! See "Advanced options" below.
Bad girl
If you are a bad girl, you will be able to speak your mind and express your sexuality freely, but you will be beaten, raped and called a whore and a witch. You may also be subjected to other punishments, such as being disowned by your family or forced into a dangerous and poorly remunerated job.
Good girl
If you are a good girl, you will be grudgingly accepted by society, but you will have to work twenty-four hours a day to learn the complex rules you need to follow, you will constantly feel that you are a fraud and an imposter, and you will need to sleep with people who do not attract you while pretending that they do.
Goal of the game
Your goal is to have children and live long enough to see them grow up only mildly damaged. You will find that this is harder than it sounds, but that's all part of the fun!
Advanced options
When you have played the game a few times, you may want to try combining the bad girl and good girl roles. You may for example be a bad girl who gets married and tries to stay faithful to her husband, or a good girl who writes a daring and truthful novel about her life. Note however that none of these strategies will actually let you win.
Useful tips
If you decide to get serious about WOMAN™, there are several excellent books which will help you improve your skills. Elena Ferrante's series is particularly good. Go out and buy a copy tomorrow, you won't regret it!
WARNING
Spending too much time playing WOMAN™ can be very depressing. Make sure you take frequent breaks, and remember that it's only a game.
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