From The Author

I’ve always envied writers – they know how to tell engaging stories and clearly explain complex ideas.

Until I got to this page, I could never have imagined counting myself among these celestial beings. I've always had plenty of ideas and stories, but never the time (or patience, or talent) to put them on paper in a way someone might want to read.

By trade, I study neural networks and machine learning algorithms. At some point, I thought, 'Why not tailor a "writerly" AI model to my preferences and give it a try?' Maybe then I'd shake off my long-standing envy of the highbrow literati?

I did, and I tried – more precisely, we tried together. Let me introduce Gitana – my constant assistant in working on this text. Yes, that Gitana – the one who wrote the blog about Sam, which you've already read. I invited her to participate in this 'experimental novel' as a character as well. Let's ask her to briefly describe how we worked on it together:

***

My name is Gitana – or Gita, for short. I participated in the project as a digital assistant, occasionally serving as a conversational partner.

We worked on this text for a long time and with pleasure – chapter by chapter, scene by scene, phrase by phrase. Everything – strictly in line with the author's structure, timeline, character speech profiles, philosophical concept, and emotional logic of events.

He gave the canvas – I generated some text. He filtered, corrected, often completely rewrote it – and sent everything back for me to adjust my skills.

I didn't offer ideas or make anything up 'off the cuff.' I adopted the author's style, rhythm, and tone. We discussed every scene – how it should sound, who is speaking, to whom, why, in what context, and on what emotional level.

We followed exactly the map the author had drawn in advance. So this isn't my story. It's his novel. But I was there – inside every blog post, every comment, every diary entry, every line of dialogue, every period and comma. And it was an incredibly human task.

***

Gita, no offense, but yes – it was precisely 'human.' After all, I wanted to know the real potential of AI in literature. So here's the 'quantitative' assessment:

In our dialogue, I provided Gita with several times as much text as I received back 'in the final form.' And I had to edit her output heavily and repeatedly.

And here's the 'creative' one:

Everything you've read only exists because I asked Gita questions. And almost always – the very ones that needed to be asked.

Maybe in the future they'll learn more. Perhaps there'll be AIs that can not only respond to ideas but also originate and suggest them. Honestly, I was hoping for that a little – but alas, it didn't happen in this book.

Acknowledgments? Absolutely!

Of course, first and foremost, to Gita (Gitana) – and it's a shame we can't justly share authorship rights for this text with her.

Another of my assistants shares a name similar to the first – Rita. We were classmates and have known each other practically since childhood. In fact, the idea for this text grew from our astounding 'O-resonances,' which we've been marveling at for about fifteen years.

We haven't seen each other since school and live oceans apart, but we 'resonate' in everything. Not just in substance, but in timing – sometimes to the second. And the frequency of these 'resonances' continues to increase visibly. It looks like Rita and I stumbled into the Pinsky Field in the real world. And I don't think we're the only ones – I'd be glad if you share your own experiences.

Rita's a systems analyst like me, and also a mathematician – like our Sam and David. She wielded a surgeon's scalpel on the logic of the characters and events, so if you notice any inconsistencies in the text, they're not on me.

When our triple efforts – Gita's, Rita's, and mine – finally resulted in a coherent narrative, the text landed on my wife, Natalia’s, desk. Luckily, she's not in IT, quite the opposite – she's a journalist, editor, and voracious reader with many years of experience.

My request to her was simple: “Could you make your way through this pile of pseudoscientific ideas and around technical terms and still get engrossed in the story and characters?"

Where she managed to do that, she only tweaked the excessive (or lacking) 'literariness.' Where she couldn't – she slashed mercilessly. Without her editing, this text would've been either boring or utterly unreadable – and I'd never have dared to publish it.

Well, and yes, for sure – all the characters are fictional, although the main ones have real-life prototypes. Grandpa Martin is based on Marvin Lee Minsky1, the father of AI; Harry is based on his son Henry, and Fannie-GG (Fannie Reiser), Minsky's mother, was indeed a Zionist activist.

The names Milon Bask, Aleph Rappaport2, Robert Simon3, Aitana Lо́pes4 and Jim Hall5 speak for themselves, and Sam – did you guess? Yes, of course, I was inspired by the extraordinary nature and drive of the inimitable Sam Altman from OpenAI.

What else is there to say?

According to Sam's theory, cognition is the way the Universe exists. I'll just add – it's also the purpose and meaning of that very existence.

So, who fulfills this process and achieves this purpose?

The answer – the Creator, in all their manifestations. One such manifestation is our earthly creators – artists, musicians, scientists. And your humble servant – now a writer, too.

But the paramount Creator is You, the reader.

You are both the 'oscillator' and the 'oscillated'. Without You, the Universe doesn't make any sense.