What I Worked On

I think it's probably more to do with being interested in things. I was really interested in computers and being online when I was young. I didn't have my own computer, my parents bought my sister one even though she didn't like or use computers, and I was always competing with my dad to use his. Later, I'd be vying with everyone for the phone line, to the point where my parents got an extra phone line, and (by then we had two computers) my brother and I would be always trying to use both phone lines so we could both be online.

Now, as an adult, I have more computers than I could reasonably use (I originally wrote "more than I could want" but that isn't true). I still use computers all the time and I'm pretty much always online. I love it and I expect to continue to going forward and, hopefully, expand my connection to computers and the internet, as technology permits.

My kids are too young to have an opinion on computers, and part of me is kind of concerned they won't have an interest in tinkering with computers or programming as I do. My father is an amateur radio enthusiast and I never really connected to that hobby. Maybe my dad trying to pressure me into studying the books (or maybe the requirement to study books) kept me from getting into it. Maybe I just had different natural proclivities. If my children show an interest in computers I won't restrict their access (except for not allowing them to use Windows). If they're into something else, I'll enable them (provided it's a healthy interest). We'll see.

Same, but I've realized my kids aren't me, and most people aren't me. Most young children I encounter are not innately fascinated by computers and itching to get programming ASAP in the way that I was. But they don't seem to be autistic like I was/am either.

I've tried to introduce them to Squeak, robots, and various such things on offer nowadays as gateways for children to get into tech, but the curiosity isn't there just yet. This is fine. They are into other things that I wasn't into at all.. like dancing, sports, or just being kids! :-)

Meta observation. There was another post on HN about a self-autobiographical career summary. The comments for that one (I Really Blew It, Chris Crawford, founder of GDC) are quite different compared to these ones. Both people have wikipedia pages, but their personalities are quite different.

I simply don't have the personality to work hard. In general, I don't believe people change after adolescence. Therefore I am most focused on contentment with the person I am, while nudging myself gently towards greater discipline. Meeting myself halfway, so to speak.

The beginning reminded me of a related essay by Eliezer Yudkowsky that lays out a similar argument for why old style AI was a hoax.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zY4pic7cwQpa9dnyk/detached-l...

“Similarly, to this day, it is still quite popular to try to program an AI with "semantic networks" that look something like this:

(apple is-a fruit)

(fruit is-a food)

(fruit is-a plant)

You've seen apples, touched apples, picked them up and held them, bought them for money, cut them into slices, eaten the slices and tasted them. Though we know a good deal about the first stages of visual processing, last time I checked, it wasn't precisely known how the temporal cortex stores and associates the generalized image of an apple - so that we can recognize a new apple from a different angle, or with many slight variations of shape and color and texture. Your motor cortex and cerebellum store programs for using the apple.

You can pull the lever on another human's strongly similar version of all that complex machinery, by writing out "apple", five ASCII characters on a webpage.

But if that machinery isn't there - if you're writing "apple" inside a so-called AI's so-called knowledge base - then the text is just a lever.”

--

It's also a good explanation of why the new style of AI appears not to be a hoax and actually works.