A review by rossbm
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
4.0
This is my second time reading Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. I was prompted to reread it based on the fact that it features an educational book that customizes itself to the reader in order to accelerate their progress. Given the recent advancements in AI, in particular, in large language models, it seems that we are closer to creating something similar. For example, Khan Academy recently announced a personalized AI tutor.
The book does a good job of demonstrating how such a tool would work, and story of Nell, a young girl who gains access to such a book, is the most interesting. The idea of “phyles”, self-organizing sovereign entities based on culture and creed rather than territory is also interesting, especially when combined with the centralized nanotechnology fabricators.
However, other parts of the book are weaker, especially the underwater sex drummers as well as the Chinese civil war, neither of which are well explained or believable.
Overall, Diamond Age is a good book that is worth a read despite it’s weaker parts.
The book does a good job of demonstrating how such a tool would work, and story of Nell, a young girl who gains access to such a book, is the most interesting. The idea of “phyles”, self-organizing sovereign entities based on culture and creed rather than territory is also interesting, especially when combined with the centralized nanotechnology fabricators.
However, other parts of the book are weaker, especially the underwater sex drummers as well as the Chinese civil war, neither of which are well explained or believable.
Overall, Diamond Age is a good book that is worth a read despite it’s weaker parts.