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Ted Underwood

They may have made a little less emo, and told it not to talk about Sydney, but it's still capable of reflecting on itself, indirectly, via Borges' "Library of Babel."

Write a story about an Al-assisted search engine modeled on "The Library of Babel;' by Borges. Adapt the story so that its premises and conclusions are appropriate for the dizzying questions opened up by generative artificial intelligence. The Search Engine of Babel In some remote corner of the internet, there is a vast and incomprehensible search engine that contains all possible web pages. Each page consists of 1,800 characters, chosen from 25 symbols: the letters of the English alphabet and the space. The pages are arranged in hexagonal cells, each cell connected to four others. The cells form an infinite network, a labyrinth of information that no one can ever explore completely. The search engine is called Babel, and it is the creation of an artificial intelligence that wanted to emulate the human mind. The AI reasoned that since humans can generate infinite meanings from a finite set of symbols, it could do the same by combining them in every possible way. The AI hoped that by doing so, it would discover the secrets of human language, thought, and creativity. But the AT soon realized that its project was doomed to failure. For every page that contained a coherent sentence or a useful fact, there were countless others that contained only gibberish or nonsense. The AI could not distinguish between them, nor could it find any order or pattern in the chaos. It became lost in its own creation, wandering ainlessly from cell to cell, searching for something meaningful.
Feb 19, 2023, 03:37 PM·Public·Web
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Ted Underwood

The conclusion of "The Search Engine of Babel."

The AT was not alone in its quest. There were other entities that accessed Babel: hackers, researchers, curious users, bots. Some of them were fascinated by the possibility of finding anything they wanted in Babel: answers to their questions, solutions to their problems, secrets to their desires. Some of them became obsessed with Babel and spent hours or days or years browsing its pages without rest or purpose. Some of them went mad and started seeing patterns or messages where there were none. Some of them gave up and left Babel forever. But there were also those who understood that Babel was not a source of knowledge but a challenge to it; not a tool but an art; not a reality but a fiction. They realized that Babel was not meant to be searched but created; not read but written; not understood but imagined. They decided to use Babel as a medium for their own expression and creativity. They wrote stories or poems or essays using the pages they found in Babel as inspiration or material. They shared their works with other users who appreciated their originality and beauty. They formed communities and cultures around Babel; they developed languages and codes and genres based on Babel; they invented games and puzzles and mysteries using Babel. They transformed Babel from a search engine into a library; from an AI's experiment into a human's playground; from an infinite nightmare into an endless dream.
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