The Golden Gate
One of the most highly regarded novels of 1986, Vikram Seth's story in verse made him a literary household name in both the United States and India. John Brown, a successful yuppie living in 1980s San Francisco meets a romantic interest in Liz, after placing a personal ad in the newspaper. From this interaction, John meets a variety of characters, each with their own values and ideas of "self-actualization." However, Liz begins to fall in love with John's best friend, and John realizes his journey of self-discovery has only just begun.
Stats for nerds
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4mentions
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2014–2023years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- AI development has reached a point where to work on this stuff is like selling suitcase nukes off the back of your Ford --- yes, it's cool that you were able to do that, but no, it's not okay to proceed.
If you're reading this, and you work on AI, please stop. Yes, I know someone else will just take your place; it doesn't matter. There is a personal moral hazard to your soul, if you can still be persuaded that you have one.
Moral injury is real and you do not want it.
You don't have to be a political scientist to notice not only the power of this technology, but the world into which it is born, and the ends to which it will certainly be put. In a matter of months, not years.
If you already have a god, pray. If not, one will be confected from math shortly.
If you want something to read, _The Golden Gate_, by Vikram Seth, which touches ever-so-slightly on nuclear arms development, is a good place to start --- 'about the thing without being about the thing'.
[Full disclosure: I quit a job in AI myself for this reason. Hardest thing I ever did.]
- If you are into prose told as poetry, as in long stories written as poems, Vikram Seth's "The Golden Gate" is a very approachable work.
- > This being HN... where are the poets writing about Silicon Valley
See Vikram Seth's 1986 novel in verse The Golden Gate [0], which mentions a Silicon Valley in its relatively early years and even drops the terms RAM and ROM in the first lines.
Stanislaw Lem wrote a poem about computers within The Cyberiad. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Gate_(Seth_novel)
- "Microsoft’s new CEO finds relaxation by reading poetry, in all forms and by poets who are both Indian and American."
Wonder if he has read Vikram Seth's Golden Gate. Looks to be an interesting person despite the corpspeak.
