I grew up with — still have two drives:

1. To compete, and
2. To explore

In high school, that meant I was a nationally ranked fencer... who read a lot of books about magic. I was also painfully aware, as a middling chess player, of the moment when AI beat Гарри Каспаров (Garry Kasparov) at chess.

AI has bested humans time and again over the years at an increasingly impressive array of past-times and full-times. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit burned by that.

But on the other hand, I can't conceive of anything more interesting to explore!

As a fencer, you become aware of the almost-machine-like-tendencies of your opponent: those automatic processes, a parry at one distance, a counterattack at another. You also become aware of your ability to manipulate your own actions, suggesting that you will do one thing when in fact, at the moment of truth — the moment of STABBING — you will do another.

So it is with a similar machinistic fascination that I explore AI. It is so interesting to me that it can take a use case and write a working (or nearly working) app for you. And yet, it will get stuck on super obvious problems, and you can watch it talk itself in circles.