Each time I examine one other advance in AI technology, I really feel like one other figment of science fiction strikes nearer to actuality.
Recently, I’ve been noticing eerie parallels to Neal Stephenson’s 1995 novel The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.
The Diamond Age depicted a post-cyberpunk sectarian future, by which society is fragmented into tribes, referred to as phyles. On this future world, subtle nanotechnology is ubiquitous, and a brand new sort of AI is launched.
Although impressed by MIT nanotech pioneer Eric Drexler and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, the superior nanotechnology depicted within the novel nonetheless stays out of attain. Nevertheless, the AI that’s portrayed, notably a instructing gadget referred to as the Younger Woman’s Illustrated Primer, isn’t solely proper in entrance of us; it additionally raises critical points in regards to the function of AI in labor, learning and human behavior.
In Stephenson’s novel, the Primer appears like a hardcover e-book, however every of its “pages” is mostly a display screen show that may present animations and textual content, and it responds to its consumer in actual time through AI. The e-book additionally has an audio part, which voices the characters and narrates tales being instructed by the gadget.
It was initially created for the younger daughter of an aristocrat, but it surely by chance falls into the arms of a woman named Nell who’s residing on the streets of a futuristic Shanghai. The Primer supplies Nell customized emotional, social and mental assist throughout her journey to maturity, serving alternatively as an AI companion, a storyteller, a instructor and a surrogate dad or mum.
The AI is ready to weave fairy tales that assist a youthful Nell deal with previous traumas, comparable to her abusive dwelling and life on the streets. It educates her on every part from math to cryptography to martial arts. In a techno-futuristic homage to George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, the Primer goes as far as to show Nell the correct social etiquette to have the ability to mix into neo-Victorian society, one of many outstanding tribes in Stephenson’s balkanized world.
No want for ‘ractors’
Three latest developments in AI—in video video games, wearable expertise and training—reveal that constructing one thing just like the Primer ought to now not be thought-about the purview of science fiction.
In Could 2025, the hit online game Fortnite launched an AI model of Darth Vader, who speaks with the voice of the late James Earl Jones.
Whereas it was fashionable amongst followers of the sport, the Display screen Actors Guild lodged a labor complaint with Epic Video games, the creator of Fortnite. Regardless that Epic had obtained permission from the late actor’s property, the Display screen Actors Guild identified that actors may have been employed to voice the character, and the corporate—in refusing to alert the union and negotiate phrases—violated existing labor agreements.
In The Diamond Age, whereas the Primer makes use of AI to generate the fairy tales that practice Nell, for the voices of those archetypal characters, Stephenson concocted a low-tech answer: The characters are performed by a community of what he termed “ractors”—actual actors working in a studio who’re contracted to carry out and work together in actual time with customers.
The Darth Vader Fortnite character reveals {that a} Primer constructed immediately wouldn’t want to make use of actors in any respect. It may rely nearly completely on AI voice era and have real-time conversations, displaying that immediately’s expertise already exceeds Stephenson’s usually far-sighted imaginative and prescient.
Recording and guiding in actual time
Synthesizing James Earl Jones’ voice in Fortnite wasn’t the one latest AI growth heralding the arrival of Primer-like expertise.
I not too long ago witnessed an indication of wearable AI that information the entire wearer’s conversations. Their phrases are then despatched to a server to allow them to be analyzed by AI, offering each summaries and ideas to the consumer about future conduct.
A number of startups are making these “at all times on” AI wearables. In an April 29, 2025, essay titled “I Recorded All the things I Mentioned for Three Months. AI Has Changed My Reminiscence,” Wall Road Journal expertise columnist Joanna Stern describes the experience of using this technology. She concedes that the assistants created helpful summaries of her conversations and conferences, together with useful to-do lists. Nevertheless, additionally they recalled “each dumb, personal and cringeworthy factor that got here out of my mouth.”
These gadgets additionally create privateness points. The individuals whom the consumer interacts with don’t at all times know they’re being recorded, at the same time as their phrases are additionally despatched to a server for the AI to course of them. To Stern, the expertise’s potential for mass surveillance turns into readily obvious, presenting a “barely terrifying glimpse of the longer term.”
Counting on AI engines comparable to ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini, the wearables work solely with phrases, not pictures. Behavioral ideas happen solely after the very fact. Nevertheless, a key perform of the Primer—teaching customers in actual time in the midst of any state of affairs or social interplay—is the subsequent logical step because the expertise advances.
Schooling or social engineering?
In The Diamond Age, the Primer doesn’t merely weave interactive fairy tales for Nell. It additionally assumes the accountability of training her on every part from her ABCs when youthful to the intricacies of cryptography and politics as she will get older.
It’s no secret that AI instruments, comparable to ChatGPT, at the moment are being broadly used by both teachers and students.
A number of latest research have proven that AI may be more effective than humans at instructing laptop science. One survey discovered that 85% of scholars stated ChatGPT was more effective than a human tutor. And at the least one school, Morehouse Faculty in Atlanta, is introducing an AI teaching assistant for professors.
There are actually benefits to AI tutors: Tutoring and school tuition could be exorbitantly costly, and the expertise can offer better access to education to individuals of all revenue ranges.
Pulling collectively these newest AI advances—interactive avatars, behavioral guides, tutors—it’s straightforward to ascertain how an AI gadget just like the Younger Woman’s Illustrated Primer could possibly be created within the close to future. A teenager might need a personalised AI character that accompanies them always. It could educate them in regards to the world and provide up ideas for act in sure conditions. The AI could possibly be tailor-made to a baby’s persona, concocting tales that embody AI variations of their favourite TV and film characters.
However The Diamond Age provides a warning, too.
Towards the top of the novel, a model of the Primer is handed out to tons of of 1000’s of younger Chinese language ladies who, like Nell, didn’t have entry to training or mentors. This results in the training of the plenty. But it surely additionally opens the door to large-scale social engineering, creating a military of Primer-raised martial arts specialists, whom the AI then directs to behave on behalf of “Princess Nell,” Nell’s fairy story identify.
It’s straightforward to see how this kind of large-scale social engineering could possibly be used to focus on sure ideologies, crush dissent or construct loyalty to a selected regime. The AI’s conduct may be topic to the whims of the companies or individuals that created it. A ubiquitous, always-on, pleasant AI may turn out to be the last word monitoring and reporting gadget. Consider a kinder, gentler face for Big Brother that folks have trusted since childhood.
Whereas large-scale deployment of a Primer-like AI may actually make younger individuals smarter and extra environment friendly, it may additionally hamper one of the essential components of training: instructing individuals to suppose for themselves.
Rizwan Virk is a school affiliate and PhD candidate in human and social dimensions of science and expertise at Arizona State University.
This text is republished from The Conversation beneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.
