Kathryn

“Lovelace defined as an ‘operation’ the control of material and symbolic entities beyond the second-order language of mathematics (like the idea, discussed in chapter 1, of an algorithmic thinking beyond the boundary of computer science). In a visionary way, Lovelace seemed to suggest that mathematics is not the universal theory par excellence but a particular case of the science of operations. Following this insight, she envisioned the capacity of numerical computers qua universal machines to represent and manipulate numerical relations in the most diverse disciplines and generate, among other things, complex musical artefacts: [The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine … Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”
― Matteo Pasquinelli, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

“Flourishing is a process, not a product. Happiness is impossible to attain as a fixed state. Indeed, it has been argued that flourishing is incompatible with stasis or even being only one thing.89 Flourishing is rather the ability to change or to become something else.”
― Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, Metamodernism: The Future of Theory

“There will be a day in the future when current AI will be considered an archaism, one technical fossil to study among others.”
― Matteo Pasquinelli, The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

“Writing simplifies life”
― Rabih Alameddine, The Wrong End of the Telescope