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Comment by bmn_ | Hacker News Reader

I love this. It could be one of the stories the [Young Lady's Illustrated Primer might tell Princess Nell](http://enwp.org/The_Diamond_Age) when she ventures forth from Castle Turing.

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The finest book I've ever read. Perhaps by the time my 2-year-old is ~13, a nano-scale machinebook will exist that can teach the both of us about zero-knowledge protocols. I understand, at the surface level, how it works, but am far too dense to see how such a system could exist in, say, computer authentication.

Hm, is it that good??? I've read only 2 NS novels and really loved them (Cryptonomicon & SnowCrash).

The Diamond Age is my favorite, by far, of the work of his that I've read (including the two you mentioned). It's very very good. I like the way he imagines a world where everyone can print whatever they need from The Feed (nanomachines + materials), and yet it's so different from the techno-utopias we have seen before where such is possible.

Most importantly, I really liked the characters (just like I did in Snow Crash). It's interesting in that there doesn't seem to be an antagonist, really -- it's more about the journey of the young lady. It's a neat fairy tale.

I never really noticed the "no antagonist" until you just mentioned it - I find that's a sign of maturity in a literary work - a story can be riveting by just seeing different people/organizations in contention with their own aims - not the simplistic good vs. evil trope.

It is that good.

This book opened my mind to what might be possible with AI and convinced me to start my journey into Machine Learning.

Having said that, one of the messages I took from the story is that AI cannot replicate human to human contact.

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