some cranky thoughts about that nyt ai quiz

well really ursula k le guin's place therein

Toward the end of February, Jack Clark of Anthropic recommended three books to listeners of Ezra Klein’s podcast for the New York Times. The first of these was, oddly enough, A Wizard of Earthsea:

Ursula Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea.” It was the first book I read. It’s a book where magic comes from knowing the true name of things, and it’s also a meditation on hubris—in this case, of a person thinking they can push magic very far.

To the best of my knowledge I’ve never actually listened to an episode of the Ezra Klein podcast. I listen to podcasts almost exclusively for falling asleep purposes and thus mostly listen to old radio shows or true crime. So I did not hear this comment on the podcast. Rather, I became aware of this comment because Le Guin’s son, Theo Downes-Le Guin posted about it on Instagram with the comment:

I am gratified to learn than Jack Clark of Anthropic loves ‘A Wizard of Earthsea,’ and that he sees in it a means for recognizing one’s own hubris. His fellow archma…