The MANIAC

by Benjamín Labatut

Ehrenfest not only cherished their proximity but thought that all searchers of truth formed a community for lost souls, a refuge of sorts, the hearth, he said, of the home that we have lost due to reason’s destructive influence, which has ruined our capacity for living. Paul, who had placed all his faith in physics, now felt let down, cast out from a paradise that, due to the increasing influence of quantum mechanics and the unstoppable spread of the mathematical plague, was retreating into a darkness deeper than the abyss within atoms.

since in morals, philosophy, and general thought, we were no better (indeed, we were much, much worse) than the Greeks, the Vedic people, or the small nomadic tribes that still clung to nature as the sole granter of grace and the true measure of existence. We had stagnated in every other sense. We were stunted in all arts except for one, techne, where our wisdom had become so profound and dangerous that it would have made the Titans that terrorized the Earth cower in fear, and the ancient lords of the woods seem as puny as sprites and as quaint as pixies.

It is not the particularly perverse destructiveness of one specific invention that creates danger. The danger is intrinsic. For progress there is no cure.”

Enjoyment is the essence of Go. And AlphaGo is very strong, but it cannot know that essence. My defeat is not mankind’s defeat. I think that these games clearly showed my own weaknesses, not humanity’s weakness.”