Two texts to put to the test

I wrote a fable about a glass that holds all human knowledge, and about the people of a coast who slowly stop looking for answers themselves. It came out as a small illustrated book in which every page is an image, so the text itself existed nowhere as text.

Now it does. Beneath the book there is a button that opens the whole story, and it is also available as a plain markdown file in English, Icelandic and Italian.

The site now also carries the essay Beyond the Bucket. In it I take the fable's question into education: what must a school protect when the work a student hands in no longer shows what the student knows? My answer is that education has a twofold task. It must enable people to judge what the machine hands them, and it must enable them to find the answers themselves. The essay was originally written in Icelandic under the title Handan fötunnar.

Test them with your own machines

I would like to ask you for one thing. Pick one of the texts, or both, and have the language model you use review it. Ask it to point out the weakest arguments, what is missing, and places where the sources do not seem to support what is claimed. Of the fable you might ask whether it clarifies its subject or oversimplifies it. Then compare the answers with the text yourself and judge whether they hold.

In this way I am testing the essay's central idea on the essay itself. A machine can hand us an answer, but we have to judge for ourselves whether it holds. Comments made without any machine at all are, of course, just as welcome.

The texts are here, as web pages and as plain markdown files:

• The Glass That Knew Everything: page · markdown
• Beyond the Bucket: page · markdown
• Handan fötunnar (Icelandic original): page · markdown

If you find an error, a weak argument or something you disagree with, send me a short note at magnus at smarason.is. Do quote the passage and say what you think is missing. I read every message I get.