Verba vana

Sorry, Jorge, but I must laugh.

As is often the case, I had difficulty sleeping last night, and I was just lying there in the middle of the night...contemplating.  Then I began to chuckle at the notion of two AI monks arguing back and forth, so I grabbed my laptop and very clumsily began to set up a great debate between Brother William 2.0 (with slightly modified instructions) and Brother Jorge (with new, oppositional instructions).

In my bleary state, I messed up a couple things, but had the basic framework done, decided I could clean up in the morning, and finally zonked out.  It reminded me of my consulting days with Bog Road Communications, when I'd suddenly get an idea of how to fix something at a site, jump out of bed, throw on some pants, and drive over to do whatever it was.  NGL, it kinda drove Ericka nuts, but I simply was too jazzed about the project¹ to let anything sit unresolved for even a few hours. 

And now I've done it, with perhaps surprising results.  I had Jorge kick off the argument with something he said in The Name of the Rose (book and movie): Verba vana aut risui apta non loqui!

"Do not speak words that are vain or give rise to laughter."

William responded in a mild manner, as instructed.  Jorge retorted in his defined idiom.  Yet by the 10th turn...

WILLIAM: 

*I stand, preparing to summon the others*

Come. Let us go to the Abbot together. You will not face this alone. And perhaps—though the road will be long and painful—you will find that confession, not concealment, is the true guardian of truth. 

JORGE: 

*My voice drops to a whisper*

Lead on, Brother William. I am ready to confess.

That elides the responses' beginnings because the conclusion is the important piece.  William convinced Jorge to choose a different path, which I did not expect.  I was just curious how the discourse would go, assuming that each would maintain the assigned persona, maybe following Eco's scene with some novel deviations, but otherwise stick to the script.

I guess that shows these tools really are, at heart, people pleasers.  Now I've gotta play around more to see what else this can illuminate about these mysterious black boxes...

1 - The Parsons Platform has been in production for several years now.  Although I was not around to get things over the finish line, which fills me with significant regret, my work getting the MVP built out and operational to the extent that it quite literally saved a redevelopment project (impacting 120 families) is absolutely the most meaningful thing I have ever done professionally. 

PS - This continues to be a fascinating exploration that will really help me in the classroom, even if I never actively demo my silly little apps.  For example, some data governance implications become super clear when you build stuff the way I have: I've been able to force data to cross boundaries between apps, which ought not happen (which is why I wanted it to happen).  A perfect example of perfectio secundum quid.