Epigraph

It is said that to explain is to explain away. This maxim is nowhere so well fulfilled as in the area of computer programming, especially in what is called heuristic programming and artificial intelligence. For in those realms machines are made to behave in wondrous ways, often sufficient to dazzle even the most experienced observer. But once a particular program is unmasked, once its inner workings are explained in language sufficiently plain to induce understanding, its magic crumbles away; it stands revealed as a mere collection of procedures, each quite comprehensible. The observer says to himself “I could have written that.” With that thought he moves the program in question from the shelf marked “intelligent,” to that reserved for curios, fit to be discussed only with people less enlightened than he.

—JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM, MIT PROFESSOR AND INVENTOR OF THE FIRST CHATBOT, ELIZA, 1966

“Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions.”

I heard this from Qi Lu; I’m not sure what the source is. It got me thinking, though–the most successful founders do not set out to create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so.

—SAM ALTMAN, 2013