Visionary
Life at times can be about chance. Scrolling away through social media. It knowing what I’m interested in. It presents what I think I may like. On such a time recently I was presented by a video of Steve Jobs giving a speech in Aspen, Colorado, USA, in 1983. I watched transfixed. Shivers down my spine at times knowing what computing was like then, what computing is now and what’s happened in-between. I got my first computer, a 16k ZX Spectrum in 1983.
Seeking out the video on YouTube to easily share here, I found it on the ‘Steve Jobs Archive’ channel ‘A 28-year-old Steve Jobs gives a talk at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen‘.
One segment that really caught my attention is on ‘Software and learning’ where he talks about wanting to ask Aristotle questions, but cannot. That in the future we may be able to have a computer to capture the underlying ‘spirit’, ‘underlying set of principles’, ‘underlying way of looking at the world’. Is that not AI? Could an AI model be a representation of the essence of a person? If so, then where would that lead? Would that mean that we’d be able to exist in a form far longer and travel through the universe without our biological constraint? What ethics surround this concept?
Voyager one is a machine that has existed in my lifetime and will be one light day away from us on ‘18th November, 2026, 5:16AM EST’ (Source: NASA). What if it had an AI model driven computer? What would it be able to describe about its experiences from the data it’s sensors feed it?
Returning to ‘Aristotle’, if we could create an AI representation of a person, then how likely are we to believe that the answers it gives represent what the actual person would have? Or would the answer be an approximation? In a way, this reminds me of the answer ‘42’ from ‘Deep thought’, ‘The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42’, as written by Douglas Adams.
Disclaimers
Names / logos can be trademarks of their respective owners. Please review their website for details. I am independent from the organisations mentioned and am in no way writing for or endorsed by them. The information presented in this article is written according to my own understanding, there could be inaccuracies, so please do undertake your own research. The featured image is my copyright, please don’t use without my permission.
Conclusion
To me Steve Jobs (along with Steve Wozniak) are one of many that have and continue to inspire, spark interest in looking at the world in a different way. That our own perspectives from our collected, processed and stored sensor data can be communicated and valued by others interacting with the technology we invent.
What do you think please? What would you like to communicate back?
- Visionary - 16th November 2026
- Dark mode - 16th October 2026
- Endianness - 16th September 2026
