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12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next.
12 Bytes How artificial intelligence will change the way we live and love. Jonathan Cape
272 pages, Hardcover
First published July 22, 2021
338 people are currently reading
5407 people want to read
About the author
Jeanette Winterson
123 books7,728 followersNovelist Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England in 1959. She was adopted and brought up in Accrington, Lancashire, in the north of England. Her strict Pentecostal Evangelist upbringing provides the background to her acclaimed first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. She graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and moved to London where she worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press.
One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council.
She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001.
Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.
One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council.
She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001.
Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 327 reviews
August 25, 2021
(My possible future self excited to read a new Jeanette Winterson book)
It's been eighteen years since I first read Jeanette Winterson. I remember being blown away by her words, the way she plays with them, stringing them together to create new meanings in a way I've never encountered with another author. Her writing is unique. And powerful. And such a delight to read.
Whether it be with fiction or nonfiction, Jeanette Winterson's writing never fails to amaze me.
12 Bytes is a series of essays weaving together themes her fans will recognise: AI, technology, mythology and religion, physics, unconventional relationships, non-binary people/characters. She is simultaneously forward-looking, past-probing, and introspective.
In these essays, Ms. Winterson explores the future of AI and AGI (artificial general intelligence), Big Tech, and the loss of privacy as we merge more and more with our technology. She tells of past scientific discoveries, paying special attention to women scientists, "computers", and programmers.
She explores Buddhism and the nature of reality. She discusses the potential dangers of the coming AGI and how we can work to use it to create a better and more egalitarian society, taking care of all the world's citizens instead of having a handful of people hoarding all the wealth, and all the power.
Ms. Winterson examines the ways in which women have historically been boxed in by gender, discouraged from venturing into careers in STEM, or any career outside the home. She looks at how there is still income inequality between women and men, and how we might do better in the future.
Some of the essays bring to mind her last novel Frankissstein: A Love Story, with Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley and sex bots. Like that novel, this book is philosophical, examining consciousness and exploring what it is to be human.... and what we might become.
Fans of Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow, Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, and Max Tegmark's Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence will find much to appreciate in "12 Bytes". If you enjoy questioning the future of humanity, you do not want to miss this book.
You might never think of the future and artificial intelligence the same way again.
(My thanks to Jeanette Winterson, Grove Press, and Edelweiss+ for a free digital review copy. This in no way influenced my review)
March 6, 2022
There is little doubt that some form of AI has entered or will enter all our lives. In a series of smart essays, Winterson takes us through all the ways this will benefit our lives if used correctly. She starts at the beginning with Ada Lovelace and Babbage and their quest to identify and in Babbage's case invent what a machine that could do things quicker and more effectively than humans. She includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Turing's enigma machine that ultimately saved many lives. Bionic men and women repaired with 3D printed parts. Cryogenics and sexbots, oh the places we can go, or not. There is also a great deal of ironic humor, which is placed in key areas. So much to discuss here, so many things that can be improved
"Practically, we are trying to develop tools that will serve mankind. That is what AI will allow. There is a bigger picture though, and I suspect that AGI will help humankind to do what it actually needs to do-which is a total reboot of priorities and methods. Our distressing desire to dominate nature and to dominate one another is killing us and killing the planet"
If only it does this that would be wonderful, but as a skeptic I can see this used for nefarious purposes as well. Very interesting read.
ARC from edelweiss.
"Practically, we are trying to develop tools that will serve mankind. That is what AI will allow. There is a bigger picture though, and I suspect that AGI will help humankind to do what it actually needs to do-which is a total reboot of priorities and methods. Our distressing desire to dominate nature and to dominate one another is killing us and killing the planet"
If only it does this that would be wonderful, but as a skeptic I can see this used for nefarious purposes as well. Very interesting read.
ARC from edelweiss.
October 21, 2024
3.5 rating
.."and there's no need to be afraid of the technology. It's how we use it that matters."
In her latest novel, Winterson explores how artificial intelligence has slowly become part of our society. There are many people, like Elon Musk, who feel that “the scariest problem is artificial intelligence — an invention that could pose an unappreciated fundamental existential risk for human civilization." ..while another part of our society would like to work alongside AI to make our lives better.
I think I'm somewhere in the middle.
"Domination isn't the answer. Compassion and cooperation are our best chance now."
The difference between AI and human beings is compassion. I think that's where my skepticism comes into play. For example, Winterson brings up the self-driving car. The idea is brilliant, but what if an animal walks in front of the car? Most people would move around the animal to avoid hitting it, but AI (at this point) does not have that capability. Or what if there are two younger people on the left side of the car and an elderly person on the right side. In an accident, an AI car may make the decision that the two younger people should be saved and turn the car to the right for collision. Human beings react on instinct and make quick decision judgement calls motivated by their feelings. AI doesn't have feelings. As Winterson points out, human beings have a limbic system. We act on emotions.
I think the most shocking chapter in this book is about sex dolls and how popular and advanced they have become. 😳
*Winterson gives readers lots to consider in this novel. AI has definitely improved our lives and makes things easier, but I also can see the dangers on relying on it for everything. Time will tell how embedded it may become in our future selves. *
.."and there's no need to be afraid of the technology. It's how we use it that matters."
In her latest novel, Winterson explores how artificial intelligence has slowly become part of our society. There are many people, like Elon Musk, who feel that “the scariest problem is artificial intelligence — an invention that could pose an unappreciated fundamental existential risk for human civilization." ..while another part of our society would like to work alongside AI to make our lives better.
I think I'm somewhere in the middle.
"Domination isn't the answer. Compassion and cooperation are our best chance now."
The difference between AI and human beings is compassion. I think that's where my skepticism comes into play. For example, Winterson brings up the self-driving car. The idea is brilliant, but what if an animal walks in front of the car? Most people would move around the animal to avoid hitting it, but AI (at this point) does not have that capability. Or what if there are two younger people on the left side of the car and an elderly person on the right side. In an accident, an AI car may make the decision that the two younger people should be saved and turn the car to the right for collision. Human beings react on instinct and make quick decision judgement calls motivated by their feelings. AI doesn't have feelings. As Winterson points out, human beings have a limbic system. We act on emotions.
I think the most shocking chapter in this book is about sex dolls and how popular and advanced they have become. 😳
*Winterson gives readers lots to consider in this novel. AI has definitely improved our lives and makes things easier, but I also can see the dangers on relying on it for everything. Time will tell how embedded it may become in our future selves. *
Want to read
January 8, 2023Really looking forward to this, hope my pre-order gets through post-Brexit VAT import well enough. The article in the Guardian is very interesting, and timely with Bezos last week, as an appetizer: https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
June 29, 2021
2.5 rounded down
Having throughly enjoyed Winterson's previous books (Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson: Note, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Frankissstein: A Love Story) I was curious when I heard she was writing a non fiction book on technology.
I guess I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the better of me as I found this to be pretty disappointing. The book contains 12 essays which read almost as blog posts on Winterson's musings on AI and technology as a whole and how it impacts our lives in the 21st century.
These essays are ambitious in scope, but I thought the execution often left something to be desired. I was unsure what the book was trying to be - to be brutally honest, if I wanted incisive views on the future of AI and how it will impact upon our lives in the future then I'd read a book written by an expert on it.
Not bad by any means, but 12 Bytes missed the mark for this reader.
Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
Having throughly enjoyed Winterson's previous books (Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson: Note, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Frankissstein: A Love Story) I was curious when I heard she was writing a non fiction book on technology.
I guess I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the better of me as I found this to be pretty disappointing. The book contains 12 essays which read almost as blog posts on Winterson's musings on AI and technology as a whole and how it impacts our lives in the 21st century.
These essays are ambitious in scope, but I thought the execution often left something to be desired. I was unsure what the book was trying to be - to be brutally honest, if I wanted incisive views on the future of AI and how it will impact upon our lives in the future then I'd read a book written by an expert on it.
Not bad by any means, but 12 Bytes missed the mark for this reader.
Thank you Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
February 11, 2023
“La vita interiore è restia ad accogliere un numero eccessivo di visitatori, ma è lì che andiamo per dialogare con noi stessi, per incontrare quella parte di noi che è al tempo stesso quiete e voce tonante. Un suono limpido nel freddo della notte.
Mi batto per la vita interiore perché ha bisogno di essere alimentata. Alimentata dalla natura e dalla cultura, i due pilastri dell’umanità qui sulla Terra: la nostra connessione con il pianeta e con le civiltà a cui abbiamo dato vita, i loro fasti di arte e architettura, di scienza e filosofia. Creiamo i nostri mondi – mondi interiori e mondi esteriori – e dobbiamo vivere in entrambi perché siamo forme di vita ibrida.
Siamo già forme di vita ibrida. Lo siamo sempre stati.
Meditiamo e agiamo. Immaginiamo e costruiamo. Ci sporchiamo le mani, ma ci eleviamo al di sopra di tutto. Sogniamo le stelle e spaliamo la merda. Siamo creature di sublime bellezza, ma anche pavide e laide. Un terribile fallimento. Un successo impossibile.”
In questa raccolta di dodici saggi, Jeanette Winterson, con uno stile brillante e molto piacevole da leggere, abbozza, in un importante lavoro documentale, un futuro improntato sull’intelligenza artificiale, mostrandone luci e ombre, sulla base dei progressi fatti in questa direzione nei decenni scorsi.
“I transistor funzionano in base al noto principio “zero e uno”, che si tratti di un sistema analogico o digitale. Zero e uno è il modo in cui l’informatica classica esegue i suoi calcoli. I “bit” di informazione contengono ciascuno un 1 o uno 0. Un “bit” quantistico, o qubit, è diverso. Molto diverso. Sfruttando il mondo delle stranezze subatomiche, un qubit può essere allo stesso tempo uno 0 e un 1. Ciò accade perché nel mondo del molto piccolo (o del molto freddo) gli stati non sono definiti finché non vengono misurati. Esistono simultaneamente in stati separati e contraddittori. Solo quando vengono osservati (misurati) assumono una forma definita. Questo funziona bene nella magia, e ogni mago, in ogni fiaba, utilizza il cliché di questo potere simultaneo, e forse è per questo che capiamo perfettamente che la realtà in cui viviamo, definita e misurabile, è solo una realtà, per lo più un po’ scombinata, e superficiale.”
In questi saggi, Jeanette Winterson non dimentica di sottolineare la differenza di genere e di quanto bei secoli sia stato difficile per le donne affermarsi nelle STEM è ancora c’è strada da fare in tale direzione.
“Sono molti gli ostacoli da superare per una donna che sceglie di far carriera nel campo delle STEM, ammesso che ci riesca, e se è più che brava dovrà continuamente dimostrarlo.
Anche dopo la morte.”
Se un robot può prevedere un nostro comportamento, non può essere dotato di empatia.
“Non voglio che l’empatia, che presuppone tanto la coscienza di sé quanto la coscienza degli altri (“so come ti senti e come io mi sentirei in questa situazione”), venga confusa con la capacità di prevedere un comportamento, che sia il tuo, il mio, o quello di un robot.
La previsione del comportamento è diventata il metodo di elezione per la valutazione dei possibili risultati, siano essi politici o commerciali.”
In tutti questi saggi, non manca il riferimento costante alla letteratura
“Shakespeare ne sintetizza il senso piuttosto bene:
Il nostro gioco è finito.
Gli attori, come dissi, erano spiriti,
e scomparvero nell’aria leggera.
Come l’opera effimera del mio
miraggio, dilegueranno le torri
che salgono su alle nubi, gli splendidi
palazzi, i templi solenni, la terra
immensa e quello che contiene; e come
la labile finzione, lentamente
ora svanita, non lasceranno orma.
Noi siamo di natura uguale ai sogni,
la breve vita è nel giro d’un sonno
conchiusa.
Vedete? Non c’è niente di solido. Niente di tridimensionale. Niente di biologico. La sola cosa che Shakespeare non ha capito è che il nostro gioco non è finito. Credo che stia per cominciare.”
Mi batto per la vita interiore perché ha bisogno di essere alimentata. Alimentata dalla natura e dalla cultura, i due pilastri dell’umanità qui sulla Terra: la nostra connessione con il pianeta e con le civiltà a cui abbiamo dato vita, i loro fasti di arte e architettura, di scienza e filosofia. Creiamo i nostri mondi – mondi interiori e mondi esteriori – e dobbiamo vivere in entrambi perché siamo forme di vita ibrida.
Siamo già forme di vita ibrida. Lo siamo sempre stati.
Meditiamo e agiamo. Immaginiamo e costruiamo. Ci sporchiamo le mani, ma ci eleviamo al di sopra di tutto. Sogniamo le stelle e spaliamo la merda. Siamo creature di sublime bellezza, ma anche pavide e laide. Un terribile fallimento. Un successo impossibile.”
In questa raccolta di dodici saggi, Jeanette Winterson, con uno stile brillante e molto piacevole da leggere, abbozza, in un importante lavoro documentale, un futuro improntato sull’intelligenza artificiale, mostrandone luci e ombre, sulla base dei progressi fatti in questa direzione nei decenni scorsi.
“I transistor funzionano in base al noto principio “zero e uno”, che si tratti di un sistema analogico o digitale. Zero e uno è il modo in cui l’informatica classica esegue i suoi calcoli. I “bit” di informazione contengono ciascuno un 1 o uno 0. Un “bit” quantistico, o qubit, è diverso. Molto diverso. Sfruttando il mondo delle stranezze subatomiche, un qubit può essere allo stesso tempo uno 0 e un 1. Ciò accade perché nel mondo del molto piccolo (o del molto freddo) gli stati non sono definiti finché non vengono misurati. Esistono simultaneamente in stati separati e contraddittori. Solo quando vengono osservati (misurati) assumono una forma definita. Questo funziona bene nella magia, e ogni mago, in ogni fiaba, utilizza il cliché di questo potere simultaneo, e forse è per questo che capiamo perfettamente che la realtà in cui viviamo, definita e misurabile, è solo una realtà, per lo più un po’ scombinata, e superficiale.”
In questi saggi, Jeanette Winterson non dimentica di sottolineare la differenza di genere e di quanto bei secoli sia stato difficile per le donne affermarsi nelle STEM è ancora c’è strada da fare in tale direzione.
“Sono molti gli ostacoli da superare per una donna che sceglie di far carriera nel campo delle STEM, ammesso che ci riesca, e se è più che brava dovrà continuamente dimostrarlo.
Anche dopo la morte.”
Se un robot può prevedere un nostro comportamento, non può essere dotato di empatia.
“Non voglio che l’empatia, che presuppone tanto la coscienza di sé quanto la coscienza degli altri (“so come ti senti e come io mi sentirei in questa situazione”), venga confusa con la capacità di prevedere un comportamento, che sia il tuo, il mio, o quello di un robot.
La previsione del comportamento è diventata il metodo di elezione per la valutazione dei possibili risultati, siano essi politici o commerciali.”
In tutti questi saggi, non manca il riferimento costante alla letteratura
“Shakespeare ne sintetizza il senso piuttosto bene:
Il nostro gioco è finito.
Gli attori, come dissi, erano spiriti,
e scomparvero nell’aria leggera.
Come l’opera effimera del mio
miraggio, dilegueranno le torri
che salgono su alle nubi, gli splendidi
palazzi, i templi solenni, la terra
immensa e quello che contiene; e come
la labile finzione, lentamente
ora svanita, non lasceranno orma.
Noi siamo di natura uguale ai sogni,
la breve vita è nel giro d’un sonno
conchiusa.
Vedete? Non c’è niente di solido. Niente di tridimensionale. Niente di biologico. La sola cosa che Shakespeare non ha capito è che il nostro gioco non è finito. Credo che stia per cominciare.”
January 22, 2022
Amazing idea, poorly executed.
I am such a fan of Jeanette Winterson - particularly how she explores questions of gender, time, and the body through a postmodern lens in her fiction. So, when I discovered that she had written a nonfiction book on technology and AI, I jumped at the chance to read her book.
What she gets right: The approach Winterson takes to questions of technology by drawing from a feminist perspective is exactly the kind of socio-critical analysis we need within the space today. Her research is extensive but not quite thorough (more on this in cons) and her characteristic writing style is brilliant.
What doesn't work at all: The research has significant gaps which prevents her feminist analysis from being truly intersectional. I would say she would benefit from reading on the history of race and technology, the decolonial perspectives on technological innovation as well as marxist analyses of the digital age to truly round out her perspectives. Secondly, her rhetoric is based entirely on structure and juxtaposing different historical stories to create contrast. This approach works perfectly in fiction but in an essay format, I would expect this evidence to be sandwiched between original analyses and that simply did not happen. So the book feels like a well-curated book on the history of technology with little to no original insights.
Overall, I would say, if you enjoy Winterson's previous work for her writing style, her smooth sentences and her use of verbs, you can find good examples of that here. For the deep insight into technology, I would recommend a writer like Ruha Benjamin instead.
I am such a fan of Jeanette Winterson - particularly how she explores questions of gender, time, and the body through a postmodern lens in her fiction. So, when I discovered that she had written a nonfiction book on technology and AI, I jumped at the chance to read her book.
What she gets right: The approach Winterson takes to questions of technology by drawing from a feminist perspective is exactly the kind of socio-critical analysis we need within the space today. Her research is extensive but not quite thorough (more on this in cons) and her characteristic writing style is brilliant.
What doesn't work at all: The research has significant gaps which prevents her feminist analysis from being truly intersectional. I would say she would benefit from reading on the history of race and technology, the decolonial perspectives on technological innovation as well as marxist analyses of the digital age to truly round out her perspectives. Secondly, her rhetoric is based entirely on structure and juxtaposing different historical stories to create contrast. This approach works perfectly in fiction but in an essay format, I would expect this evidence to be sandwiched between original analyses and that simply did not happen. So the book feels like a well-curated book on the history of technology with little to no original insights.
Overall, I would say, if you enjoy Winterson's previous work for her writing style, her smooth sentences and her use of verbs, you can find good examples of that here. For the deep insight into technology, I would recommend a writer like Ruha Benjamin instead.
July 24, 2022
12 essays broken into 4 sections tackling the subjects of technology, AI, and AGI from a captivating, optimistic and hopeful feminist perspective. While the book is broken into 4 sections, all of the essays play against each other and circle around each other, and really go together quite well. I hardly put it down and read it straight through despite the topic that generally might feel a bit dry for me after a bit - Winterson is almost unbelievably engaging. She writes in a completely accessible way, passionately and provocatively with multitudes of fascinating facts and optimistic, motivating what-if scenarios.
A very appealing part of this book is how she looks back at history to guide us (and help us make wiser choices) for where she feels we are at with technology - a crucial turning point. Her topics are wide-ranging, she draws upon Gnosticism, Buddhism, Descartes, Frankenstein, Dracula, vampires, Oscar Wilde, Plato, Aristotle, Le Guin, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Goethe, BF Skinner, (just to name a few!) and connects these pieces through time and space by relating this wisdom to where we are and where we may go with our privacy, data, smartphones and robots.
I also love how she’s able to weigh these very real problems humanity is currently facing by looking at them through a novelist's lens of love, religion, the nature of art and creativity, and the mystery of our own inner lives (which she argues we should still aim to protect).
The essays wrap up quite thoughtfully and beautifully, and I think I will probably read this one again. It’s almost impossibly optimistic, but maybe it’s exactly what we need. This book is full of insights, and hopefulness for things we can do now to affect positive change on our collective future. Even if technology isn’t heading towards AI/AGI as quickly as she thinks it may, her advice on what is happening right now is urgently important - highly recommend this one.
“AI doesn’t have a skin color or gender - by making it mostly white and mostly male at every stage, we’re reinforcing a problem we need to solve.
If AI and AGI really is going to benefit the many and not the few, people invited to the table must include more people of color, more women, and more people with a humanities background - rather than an overwhelming number of male physicists.”
“The arts aren’t a leisure industry - the arts have always been an imaginative and emotional wrestle with reality - a series of inventions and creations. A capacity to think differently, a willingness to change our understanding of ourselves. To help us to be wiser, more reflective, less frightened people. "
A very appealing part of this book is how she looks back at history to guide us (and help us make wiser choices) for where she feels we are at with technology - a crucial turning point. Her topics are wide-ranging, she draws upon Gnosticism, Buddhism, Descartes, Frankenstein, Dracula, vampires, Oscar Wilde, Plato, Aristotle, Le Guin, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Goethe, BF Skinner, (just to name a few!) and connects these pieces through time and space by relating this wisdom to where we are and where we may go with our privacy, data, smartphones and robots.
I also love how she’s able to weigh these very real problems humanity is currently facing by looking at them through a novelist's lens of love, religion, the nature of art and creativity, and the mystery of our own inner lives (which she argues we should still aim to protect).
The essays wrap up quite thoughtfully and beautifully, and I think I will probably read this one again. It’s almost impossibly optimistic, but maybe it’s exactly what we need. This book is full of insights, and hopefulness for things we can do now to affect positive change on our collective future. Even if technology isn’t heading towards AI/AGI as quickly as she thinks it may, her advice on what is happening right now is urgently important - highly recommend this one.
“AI doesn’t have a skin color or gender - by making it mostly white and mostly male at every stage, we’re reinforcing a problem we need to solve.
If AI and AGI really is going to benefit the many and not the few, people invited to the table must include more people of color, more women, and more people with a humanities background - rather than an overwhelming number of male physicists.”
“The arts aren’t a leisure industry - the arts have always been an imaginative and emotional wrestle with reality - a series of inventions and creations. A capacity to think differently, a willingness to change our understanding of ourselves. To help us to be wiser, more reflective, less frightened people. "
July 27, 2021
:( as someone who also loves AI and tech and looking at where things came from in the humanities sense this book should’ve been perfect but everything felt disjointed, jarring, incoherent. the essays were hard to read because they were written like half-baked notes, everything was broken up sentences and disjointed concepts. i also felt like they just didn’t flow together very well. overall felt like no one read or edited this before publishing - tons of typos too especially toward the end? very disappointed i was super excited for this book :(
June 29, 2023
This is a gripping read, to say gripping doesn’t sound quite right for a non-fiction as Jeanette Winterson shares her discoveries of AI.
I also found this a fun read, with its wonderful description of transistor radios and how computers used to be room sized. I was also amused with chapter headings like A Loom with a View and I Love Therefore I am.
The book is a collection of 12 essays, 13 if it’s the 2022 edition, and (to my thrill) it starts with Ada Lovelace; and then gets better as Jeanette Winterson makes a connection to her and Mary Shelley (and her novel Frankenstein), and then later Alan Turin.
This was all before moving on to show the developing tech and AI, which was done by gathering an assortment of ideas, including Vampires (chapter on how life can be extended, this was an eye opener), and the mathematician Marvin Minsky (chapter where Jeanette Winterson shares why she thinks the human brain is receptive to AI). All this was leading up to the next stage, AGI.
AGI, artificial general intelligence, when it happens, will be the big changer.
In this book Jeanette Winterson raises questions (about identity and privacy, and how big companies, including social media platforms, are making profit from data), but I wouldn’t call her a sceptic, in fact, she welcomes AI (and gives many examples that show how it will help and make things better). In places she sounds very excited about this tech, but at the same time not shying away to show how things will be trickier if AI and AGI are only managed and handled by the private sector.
I like tech but I haven’t given much thought to humans and bots living side by side, this book may not cover everything but it has got me thinking.
I also found this a fun read, with its wonderful description of transistor radios and how computers used to be room sized. I was also amused with chapter headings like A Loom with a View and I Love Therefore I am.
The book is a collection of 12 essays, 13 if it’s the 2022 edition, and (to my thrill) it starts with Ada Lovelace; and then gets better as Jeanette Winterson makes a connection to her and Mary Shelley (and her novel Frankenstein), and then later Alan Turin.
This was all before moving on to show the developing tech and AI, which was done by gathering an assortment of ideas, including Vampires (chapter on how life can be extended, this was an eye opener), and the mathematician Marvin Minsky (chapter where Jeanette Winterson shares why she thinks the human brain is receptive to AI). All this was leading up to the next stage, AGI.
AGI, artificial general intelligence, when it happens, will be the big changer.
In this book Jeanette Winterson raises questions (about identity and privacy, and how big companies, including social media platforms, are making profit from data), but I wouldn’t call her a sceptic, in fact, she welcomes AI (and gives many examples that show how it will help and make things better). In places she sounds very excited about this tech, but at the same time not shying away to show how things will be trickier if AI and AGI are only managed and handled by the private sector.
I like tech but I haven’t given much thought to humans and bots living side by side, this book may not cover everything but it has got me thinking.
January 17, 2025
Jeanette Winterson's essays on the past, present and future of artificial intelligence are the result of excellent human intelligence. It is fantastic in several senses what she brings together in phenomena and perspectives to bring us to surprising insights, at least to me as a layman in the field of AI. It has been apparent for some time what a diversity of human and transhuman life forms are developing. It is up to the social order to obtain and implement adequate policy insights on this, to whatever extent. Winterson devotes a good part of her book to the position of women, in particular to the reprehensibility of the attitude of men towards women in the field of qualified work - shocking when you are confronted with the facts, with more than enough numerical evidence. The whole has wit, coherence and clear conclusions. Lovingly recommended! JM
PS
Jan. 17, 2025, later this day
I just saw the film ‘Wind River’ (2016) on Dutch television. At the end was this text: “While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, non exist for Native American women. No one knows how many are missing.”
This message and – a part of – Winterson’s book are connected. Find out. JM
PS
Jan. 17, 2025, later this day
I just saw the film ‘Wind River’ (2016) on Dutch television. At the end was this text: “While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, non exist for Native American women. No one knows how many are missing.”
This message and – a part of – Winterson’s book are connected. Find out. JM
May 15, 2025
[edited: 2023/03/15]
If I'm being charitable, I'd say I was not the target audience for this book. But truthfully, the book is vapid and naive at best, insensitive and misinformed at worst.
The writing is terrible. While recounting how Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, accidentally wrote a scientific paper based on lecture notes written in French, Wintersen puts this in: "Then, as now, Europeans are likely to speak more than one language, while the English don't bother." The remark has nothing to do with the passage because Ada was learned in French thanks to her upbringing. Wintersen's attempt to be witty thus comes off as classist. When she says things like, "Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, so it was important to show some respect to poets (37)," I start wondering what she thinks of her readers.
My frustration was compounded by her shallow knowledge on the topics at hand. She calls Facebook's FBLearner Flow an "AI prediction engine (297)." (It's not; it's just a wrapper or, as Facebook's blog calls it, "a platform" for running machine learning experiments in-house instead of using other open source packages that provide a similar framework.) Elsewhere she brings up 3D-printed houses as an AI solution to the housing crisis (293). One, as far as I can tell, there is yet to be an AI component to this use of 3d printing. Two and more importantly, as this Reddit responder points out, "[t]he housing crisis isn't caused by how long it takes to build a house." There is a (short) bibliography at the end of the book, but clearly, her research isn't comprehensive.
Sometimes she recognizes that we need to keep Big Tech companies accountable to protect us, the consumers, from being made fodder for their algorithms and tokens of backdoor data exchange. But other times, she lacks specificity in her analysis: "It's humans we need to worry about (272)"; "We're all to blame--the USA, China, Russia, the UK; we're all missing the point that we are, collectively, not the victim but the aggressor (278)." I feel uneasy when she puts the blame on everyone like this. It has a similar aftertaste to “All lives matter." She's dismissing a well-studied sociological aspect of these technologies: some groups of people are hurt and will continue to be hurt by existing and future technologies.
I've known Wintersen's obsession with Frankenstein, the Romantics, and the Genesis from her fiction. Still, I found it creepy how these motifs, especially the doomsday vision, percolate through these essays. She thinks intelligence is all in the brains (which is perhaps why Dr. Stein in Frankissstein: A Love Story only keeps the brain of his friend to be revived) and finds solace in the very body-lessness of an artificial general intelligence, as if computers like the ones that would power AGI wouldn't consume a large amount of resources.
To Wintersen, activism and politics are "madness--doing the same old things yet expecting different results (140)." She keeps saying a non-human superintelligence will help us all. Help us do what? "A total reboot of priorities and methods (137)." The outcome of her technological pantheism is a tabula rasa where all our current problems have been ctrl+alt+deleted. It rubs off as antihumanist.
For more humanist and well-researched takes on the implications of AI and the social accountability of the Big Tech, here are some recommendations from my bookshelves and bookmarks:
- Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin (2019)
- Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Noble (2018)
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez (2019)
- Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeil (2020)
- independent reporting outlets like The Markup and 404 Media
- writings by Abeba Birbane
- on demystifying Chat GPT-3, see this n+1 essay by Meghan O'Gieblyn (2021) and this New Yorker essay by Ted Chiang (2023)
If I'm being charitable, I'd say I was not the target audience for this book. But truthfully, the book is vapid and naive at best, insensitive and misinformed at worst.
The writing is terrible. While recounting how Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, accidentally wrote a scientific paper based on lecture notes written in French, Wintersen puts this in: "Then, as now, Europeans are likely to speak more than one language, while the English don't bother." The remark has nothing to do with the passage because Ada was learned in French thanks to her upbringing. Wintersen's attempt to be witty thus comes off as classist. When she says things like, "Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, so it was important to show some respect to poets (37)," I start wondering what she thinks of her readers.
My frustration was compounded by her shallow knowledge on the topics at hand. She calls Facebook's FBLearner Flow an "AI prediction engine (297)." (It's not; it's just a wrapper or, as Facebook's blog calls it, "a platform" for running machine learning experiments in-house instead of using other open source packages that provide a similar framework.) Elsewhere she brings up 3D-printed houses as an AI solution to the housing crisis (293). One, as far as I can tell, there is yet to be an AI component to this use of 3d printing. Two and more importantly, as this Reddit responder points out, "[t]he housing crisis isn't caused by how long it takes to build a house." There is a (short) bibliography at the end of the book, but clearly, her research isn't comprehensive.
Sometimes she recognizes that we need to keep Big Tech companies accountable to protect us, the consumers, from being made fodder for their algorithms and tokens of backdoor data exchange. But other times, she lacks specificity in her analysis: "It's humans we need to worry about (272)"; "We're all to blame--the USA, China, Russia, the UK; we're all missing the point that we are, collectively, not the victim but the aggressor (278)." I feel uneasy when she puts the blame on everyone like this. It has a similar aftertaste to “All lives matter." She's dismissing a well-studied sociological aspect of these technologies: some groups of people are hurt and will continue to be hurt by existing and future technologies.
I've known Wintersen's obsession with Frankenstein, the Romantics, and the Genesis from her fiction. Still, I found it creepy how these motifs, especially the doomsday vision, percolate through these essays. She thinks intelligence is all in the brains (which is perhaps why Dr. Stein in Frankissstein: A Love Story only keeps the brain of his friend to be revived) and finds solace in the very body-lessness of an artificial general intelligence, as if computers like the ones that would power AGI wouldn't consume a large amount of resources.
To Wintersen, activism and politics are "madness--doing the same old things yet expecting different results (140)." She keeps saying a non-human superintelligence will help us all. Help us do what? "A total reboot of priorities and methods (137)." The outcome of her technological pantheism is a tabula rasa where all our current problems have been ctrl+alt+deleted. It rubs off as antihumanist.
For more humanist and well-researched takes on the implications of AI and the social accountability of the Big Tech, here are some recommendations from my bookshelves and bookmarks:
- Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin (2019)
- Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Noble (2018)
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez (2019)
- Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeil (2020)
- independent reporting outlets like The Markup and 404 Media
- writings by Abeba Birbane
- on demystifying Chat GPT-3, see this n+1 essay by Meghan O'Gieblyn (2021) and this New Yorker essay by Ted Chiang (2023)
December 23, 2021
Though I don't always agree with some of the smaller points Winterson makes, overall I loved this collection of essays, and I especially love how they are basically vindication of the importance of humanities for the hard sciences as well as a plea for IT (and especially those who develop AI) to be more diverse.
October 27, 2025
A meditation on AI and humanity which sometimes felt more as a sermon than a story, but worth reading for its nuggets of digital wisdom
Jeanette Winterson’s Twelve Bytes explores the meeting between Human and AI interaction. Not by explaining the technics, data or science behind the AI, but through myth, religion and moral reflection. It is more philosophical than technical and is structured as loosely connected essays, each focussing on a different aspect of AI.
As usual, I found some of the chapters (essays) more illuminating than others. In my opinion, Winterson’s best chapters focussed were philosophical and emotionally charged such as her essays on the role of AI as a potential “Boeddha”: a selfless, enlightened intelligence that might teach us what compassion really means. Her essays on transhumanism were also interesting because she raised the question that technical innovation is meaningless without moral or spiritual evolution. These were the moments where she truly held my attention.
But the essays about gender and posthuman identity felt too detached from that moral and existential themes, which was what initially drew me in. I guess that is one of the book’s challenges: Twelve Bytes tries to cover everything and therefore I lost my focus at the end.
The result was that this book for me felt as a number of brilliant fragments rather than a complete argument. Ofcourse, this is a personal reflection and any reader might feel the opposite - but be warned.
Read in Dutch
Jeanette Winterson’s Twelve Bytes explores the meeting between Human and AI interaction. Not by explaining the technics, data or science behind the AI, but through myth, religion and moral reflection. It is more philosophical than technical and is structured as loosely connected essays, each focussing on a different aspect of AI.
As usual, I found some of the chapters (essays) more illuminating than others. In my opinion, Winterson’s best chapters focussed were philosophical and emotionally charged such as her essays on the role of AI as a potential “Boeddha”: a selfless, enlightened intelligence that might teach us what compassion really means. Her essays on transhumanism were also interesting because she raised the question that technical innovation is meaningless without moral or spiritual evolution. These were the moments where she truly held my attention.
But the essays about gender and posthuman identity felt too detached from that moral and existential themes, which was what initially drew me in. I guess that is one of the book’s challenges: Twelve Bytes tries to cover everything and therefore I lost my focus at the end.
The result was that this book for me felt as a number of brilliant fragments rather than a complete argument. Ofcourse, this is a personal reflection and any reader might feel the opposite - but be warned.
Read in Dutch
Read
January 2, 2025I ordered a paper version of this before I’d finished listening to it on Libby, I could tell this was a book I’d want to have more time to digest.
In 12 short essays Jeannette Winterson does exactly what the subtitle suggests: looks back at how technology has developed, how we have shaped and been shaped by it, and muses on where it might take us in the future. Her thoughts on AI are largely more optimistic than others I’ve read, though she does not ignore the challenges and possible pitfalls, and she suggests a shift to what she calls ‘trans-human’ life which is a completely new idea to me. I’m not sure what to make of all of Winterson’s ideas, but they’re definitely thought-provoking. The history bits were well told for a general audience. Winterson’s humour and writing was a joy throughout.
In 12 short essays Jeannette Winterson does exactly what the subtitle suggests: looks back at how technology has developed, how we have shaped and been shaped by it, and muses on where it might take us in the future. Her thoughts on AI are largely more optimistic than others I’ve read, though she does not ignore the challenges and possible pitfalls, and she suggests a shift to what she calls ‘trans-human’ life which is a completely new idea to me. I’m not sure what to make of all of Winterson’s ideas, but they’re definitely thought-provoking. The history bits were well told for a general audience. Winterson’s humour and writing was a joy throughout.
April 14, 2025
LOVE - very interesting and well thought out discussions on the challenges and opportunities facing us when it comes to AI. Very balanced. Makes you think about what a human even is. Scary at points…but also hopeful… should I do computer science…
April 25, 2025
so glad the jeanette winterson flop era was temporary
January 27, 2024
Sigríður Hagalín mælti með þessari í samtali við Bara bækur á Rás 1 og núna er ég að mæla með henni. Virkilega áhugaverð og skemmtileg, sérstaklega í lestri höfundar.
September 11, 2022
Really fun book, I'm glad I did the audio, the author reads it herself and is delightful. More of a collection of essays and very much from her own perspective (I don't always agree with her opinions but she is awfully likable and fun to listen to, and extremely imagintative!)
NOT exactly a "sciencey" type books, more of a social commentary on People and AI. Some quirky subjects (I mean that in a good way!) including a chapter called "My Bear Can Talk!" which addresses the apparently innate tendency for people, from childhood, to assign conscious qualities to inanimate objects such as Teddy bears. It gets pretty weird when she talks about lifelike female "companions" to lonely men (or those who just want a partner who is always agreeable, adoring and beautiful). And then there are little humanoid robots who help kids with their schoolwork, and little robotic dogs for people who don't like to clean up poop or work long hours or are not with-it enough to be trusted with a live one....
Lots here from the LGBTQ perspective which is kind of unique and rather interesting. As a regular old boring straight person it's cool to have a perspective which I would normally not think of. Some very cool stuff on women and computer programming. It was once considered "women's work" probably because during WWII and in the early days of the space program, women were employed to crunch the numbers, generally manually. Winterson talks about the programmer-cum-enterpreneur Stephanie Shirley who becomes an independent programming contractor who hires only women, mostly working at their kitchen tables, and when the company goes public 70 of her employees along with herself become millionaires (she was a huge philanthropist.) In order to be taken seriously in these early days of computer science, she slightly changes her name to "Steve" and business booms. Women back then were looked at as somewhat inferior and definitely not generally capable of logic!
The only thing I objected to in the book, when she was talking about social media and regulating and such, was she said several times that "Hate Speech is not Free Speech." This perspective can be dangerous. The opposite of Free Speech is, say, prisoners of war being forced to denounce their country to avoid torture, or (more commonly) a person being forbidden to express their opinions or testimony to the public. AI has absolutely no clue, especially at this juncture, on what's acceptable speech and what's not. My sweet friend got a severe warning and was censored by the Facebook nazis because she commented on Peter's post: "Peter, you are extremely eloquent pig!"
Well....this is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, Peter was a pig. He had his own Facebook page with friends around the world. And he was indeed very eloquent. And also ... you mean, Facebook allows people to let fly the F bomb all over the place but objects to the label "pig?" I mean .... if you cant keep your values straight, then STOP JUDGING. Free Speech should always be given the benefit of the doubt, unless it is obviously harmful. On the order of allowing users to plan a terrorist attack. Not speech that might hurt the feelings of curmudgeonly old prudes or emotionally delicate woke people. I
Free Speech is a Big Deal ('course, I'm an American and we are kind of defensive about our Constitutional rights). I do not trust the government, social media, my dearest friend, or any kind of AI to censor my speech.
But just disagreeing on a point or two did not diminish my enjoyment of this clever book. Very educational and entertaining. Do not expect it to be an in-depth study of how AI works, but rather an engaging and imaginative comtemplation on how it affects us, and possibly will impact the future.
NOT exactly a "sciencey" type books, more of a social commentary on People and AI. Some quirky subjects (I mean that in a good way!) including a chapter called "My Bear Can Talk!" which addresses the apparently innate tendency for people, from childhood, to assign conscious qualities to inanimate objects such as Teddy bears. It gets pretty weird when she talks about lifelike female "companions" to lonely men (or those who just want a partner who is always agreeable, adoring and beautiful). And then there are little humanoid robots who help kids with their schoolwork, and little robotic dogs for people who don't like to clean up poop or work long hours or are not with-it enough to be trusted with a live one....
Lots here from the LGBTQ perspective which is kind of unique and rather interesting. As a regular old boring straight person it's cool to have a perspective which I would normally not think of. Some very cool stuff on women and computer programming. It was once considered "women's work" probably because during WWII and in the early days of the space program, women were employed to crunch the numbers, generally manually. Winterson talks about the programmer-cum-enterpreneur Stephanie Shirley who becomes an independent programming contractor who hires only women, mostly working at their kitchen tables, and when the company goes public 70 of her employees along with herself become millionaires (she was a huge philanthropist.) In order to be taken seriously in these early days of computer science, she slightly changes her name to "Steve" and business booms. Women back then were looked at as somewhat inferior and definitely not generally capable of logic!
The only thing I objected to in the book, when she was talking about social media and regulating and such, was she said several times that "Hate Speech is not Free Speech." This perspective can be dangerous. The opposite of Free Speech is, say, prisoners of war being forced to denounce their country to avoid torture, or (more commonly) a person being forbidden to express their opinions or testimony to the public. AI has absolutely no clue, especially at this juncture, on what's acceptable speech and what's not. My sweet friend got a severe warning and was censored by the Facebook nazis because she commented on Peter's post: "Peter, you are extremely eloquent pig!"
Well....this is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, Peter was a pig. He had his own Facebook page with friends around the world. And he was indeed very eloquent. And also ... you mean, Facebook allows people to let fly the F bomb all over the place but objects to the label "pig?" I mean .... if you cant keep your values straight, then STOP JUDGING. Free Speech should always be given the benefit of the doubt, unless it is obviously harmful. On the order of allowing users to plan a terrorist attack. Not speech that might hurt the feelings of curmudgeonly old prudes or emotionally delicate woke people. I
Free Speech is a Big Deal ('course, I'm an American and we are kind of defensive about our Constitutional rights). I do not trust the government, social media, my dearest friend, or any kind of AI to censor my speech.
But just disagreeing on a point or two did not diminish my enjoyment of this clever book. Very educational and entertaining. Do not expect it to be an in-depth study of how AI works, but rather an engaging and imaginative comtemplation on how it affects us, and possibly will impact the future.
November 16, 2021
3.5
I love Winterson's writing. These essays hover between humorous and foreboding as she expands on our relationship with computers and specifically AI. Some of the essays seem to get lost in social justice issues- which is fine, I like these topics as well- and the path of the book becomes a little blurry. But all in all, it was a good read.
I love Winterson's writing. These essays hover between humorous and foreboding as she expands on our relationship with computers and specifically AI. Some of the essays seem to get lost in social justice issues- which is fine, I like these topics as well- and the path of the book becomes a little blurry. But all in all, it was a good read.
April 30, 2023
“Humans are not Nature/Nurture. Humans are narrative. The stories we hear. The stories we tell. The stories we must learn to tell differently.”
Though I will admit that this collection of essays may be an acquired taste for some, I really enjoyed Winterson's musings on scientific progress and how it affects our fundamental perceptions of life. I am reading this for my dissertation research on literary discourse on scientific anxiety and it has inspired my reflections on her work. I am not sure whether I agree with all that she discusses but admire the ambitious scope of her essays that she still manages to tie back to the fundamental role of stoytelling and literature as our way to explore our sense of self.
Winterson has become one of my favourite authors and I am determined to read everything she has written, something I rarely decide to do. She is so wonderfully skilled at compacting the most complex ideas, considering constrits of time, space, cultures and other gigantic forces of influence. I also adore her profound understanding of literary value in exploring truth. Have a go at this! Don't expect clean-cut essays but consider it an exploration more so than a diligent study. You won't be disappointed.
Though I will admit that this collection of essays may be an acquired taste for some, I really enjoyed Winterson's musings on scientific progress and how it affects our fundamental perceptions of life. I am reading this for my dissertation research on literary discourse on scientific anxiety and it has inspired my reflections on her work. I am not sure whether I agree with all that she discusses but admire the ambitious scope of her essays that she still manages to tie back to the fundamental role of stoytelling and literature as our way to explore our sense of self.
Winterson has become one of my favourite authors and I am determined to read everything she has written, something I rarely decide to do. She is so wonderfully skilled at compacting the most complex ideas, considering constrits of time, space, cultures and other gigantic forces of influence. I also adore her profound understanding of literary value in exploring truth. Have a go at this! Don't expect clean-cut essays but consider it an exploration more so than a diligent study. You won't be disappointed.
December 26, 2021
At one point she lists a bunch of Big Brother-y things tech companies want to accomplish (locking your smart fridge if you're eating too much, scheduling a therapy appointment if....some other smart device notices you might not be doing well) and instead of citing sources she says "All of this is true" or "I'm not making any of this up." And the thing is, she cites sources in plenty of other places, so why can't she do that here? It's not that I don't believe her. Just cite a source.
December 21, 2021
Jeanette Winterson's collection of essays hover between humorous and foreboding as she expands on our relationship with computers and specifically AI. The approach Winterson takes in 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next to questions of technology by drawing from a feminist perspective is exactly the kind of socio-critical analysis we need within the space today. Her research is extensive but not quite thorough and her characteristic writing style is brilliant. Despite this, it leaves behind poignant questions: Why do we believe we are in control of in the present world, how come we readily let our own lives be open to misuse by algorithms, how will we ever live in an equal world when the tech world is led by predominantly white males?
//Twelve Books of Christmas (3)
//Twelve Books of Christmas (3)
June 21, 2025
‘It is not a stretch to say that every problem in the world facing us now, our wars, hatreds, divisions, nationalisms, persecu-tions, separations, scarcity, lack, and suicidal self-destruction of the planet, could be mended by love.’ (310)
Gives a comprehensive look at the past, contemporary and future, and postulates that they are perhaps each one and the same. It’s different from just truth and reality, though, because it’s Jeanette, and she still has such a way with words. But we dont have the same humor icl.
Gives a comprehensive look at the past, contemporary and future, and postulates that they are perhaps each one and the same. It’s different from just truth and reality, though, because it’s Jeanette, and she still has such a way with words. But we dont have the same humor icl.
October 1, 2023
v general knowledge with no new leaps in knowledge, but a tidy collection of feminist thought on AI from a humanities perspective wahoo
January 6, 2022
This is a collection of essays about humans and their relationship to technology - mostly their relationship to Artificial Intelligence.
As I read them, the main points are (1) the merging of humans and AI in some fashion (or fashions) is inevitable; and (2) we need to make sure that we bequeath our post-human children the qualities of our better nature. Something that's not going to happen (and is not happening) if we allow the sociopathic man-children of Silicon Valley to control how AI is integrated into our lives.
I'm with her. I'd much prefer to live in a future like pre-JJ Abrams Star Trek or Iain Banks' Culture or Elizabeth Bear's Synarche rather than that of the film Ex Machina, for example.
Oddly enough, I was reminded, particularly by the last essay, "I Love, Therefore I Am," of the ending to Butterfly and Hellflower:
As I read them, the main points are (1) the merging of humans and AI in some fashion (or fashions) is inevitable; and (2) we need to make sure that we bequeath our post-human children the qualities of our better nature. Something that's not going to happen (and is not happening) if we allow the sociopathic man-children of Silicon Valley to control how AI is integrated into our lives.
I'm with her. I'd much prefer to live in a future like pre-JJ Abrams Star Trek or Iain Banks' Culture or Elizabeth Bear's Synarche rather than that of the film Ex Machina, for example.
Oddly enough, I was reminded, particularly by the last essay, "I Love, Therefore I Am," of the ending to Butterfly and Hellflower:
That was the cause of the Library War that Paladin had always searched for. The Libraries were perfect. They tried to remake Man in their image. Valijon'd been right all along. Maybe, if you dug deep enough, hellflowers didn't even hate Libraries. But they knew. Libraries and organics couldn't share.
But maybe, just maybe, in a thousand years there would be room for a Library that knew what it was to be human.
January 12, 2024
But if we don’t notice the transforming changes that are ours to enjoy – if we can only fixate on what is wrong – then we will build the dystopia we fear – and AI will help us do it.
👆
👆
February 17, 2023
In her fascinating book 12 Bytes: How We Got Here/ Where We Might Go Next, Jeanette Winterson writes:
---
Humans are not Nature / Nurture.
Humans are narrative.
The stories we hear. The stories we tell. The stories we must learn to tell differently.
Humans have been telling stories since time began - on cave walls, in song, in dance, in language. We make ourselves up as we go along.
Who we are is not a law - we're not like gravity. We are an ongoing story.
As Donna J. Haraway puts it in Staying with the Trouble: "It matters what stories we tell to other stories... it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.
---
Although I'm borrowing this book from the library, I'm gonna need to add it to my personal stock eventually. An engaging overview of AI and its cultural and technological ramifications past, present and future, 12 Bytes comprises 12 essays exploring the ways in which we shape, and are shaped by, our relationships to the things we create - things that take on lives of their own. Winterson prefers the term alternative intelligence over the more common artificial intelligence, and views AI less from the perspective of a data geek than as a dramatic, pivotal chapter in the human epic.
It's deep yet accessible, I'm loving every word of it, and I give it my highest recommendation for folks of similarly inquisitive and reflective minds.
---
Humans are not Nature / Nurture.
Humans are narrative.
The stories we hear. The stories we tell. The stories we must learn to tell differently.
Humans have been telling stories since time began - on cave walls, in song, in dance, in language. We make ourselves up as we go along.
Who we are is not a law - we're not like gravity. We are an ongoing story.
As Donna J. Haraway puts it in Staying with the Trouble: "It matters what stories we tell to other stories... it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.
---
Although I'm borrowing this book from the library, I'm gonna need to add it to my personal stock eventually. An engaging overview of AI and its cultural and technological ramifications past, present and future, 12 Bytes comprises 12 essays exploring the ways in which we shape, and are shaped by, our relationships to the things we create - things that take on lives of their own. Winterson prefers the term alternative intelligence over the more common artificial intelligence, and views AI less from the perspective of a data geek than as a dramatic, pivotal chapter in the human epic.
It's deep yet accessible, I'm loving every word of it, and I give it my highest recommendation for folks of similarly inquisitive and reflective minds.
August 18, 2025
three stars because at least jeanette is fun to disagree with. but this book exemplifies why people uncritically buy into the hype (read: marketing) around AI: they are too captured by its depictions in fiction. winterson's arguments about the future of AI default to metaphors from dracula, frankenstein, and the matrix, and as a result, I think she hugely oversells the inevitability of AI's omnipresence our lives and the merging of humans and computers (most obvious in her chapter about the metaverse which, in reality, flopped for entirely predictable reasons).
other disagreements: beginning so many arguments with "it's possible that...", an incredibly low burden of proof; buying into AI exceptionalism i.e. that this specific technology is somehow unique or final in human advancement; confusing the meaning of "intelligence" and "consciousness" (or in some cases, simply saying the difference is uninteresting to her); reliance on great man history as a narrative strategy.
other disagreements: beginning so many arguments with "it's possible that...", an incredibly low burden of proof; buying into AI exceptionalism i.e. that this specific technology is somehow unique or final in human advancement; confusing the meaning of "intelligence" and "consciousness" (or in some cases, simply saying the difference is uninteresting to her); reliance on great man history as a narrative strategy.
May 18, 2022
4.5 stars. This was absolutely brilliant. I love non-fiction books which really teach you things and that you come out of with a better understanding of something in the world. 12 Bytes explores technology, gender, science fiction, computing, sex and psychology in this book and it is absolutely fascinating. I loved the first essay on Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace as two of the women at the forefront of science, and also the chapters about female programmers who have given so much work to STEM but go forgotten just because they are women. It reads like a really exciting history of humanity and science whilst referencing pivotal works of science fiction and exploring the gender binary and sex dolls in the mix too. Really recommend this book and I loved hearing her narrate it herself on audio as she seems like such a fun and exciting person.
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