Jarvising

A near-ubiquitous reference, or aspiration, for AI agents is J.A.R.V.I.S., the super­ca­pable com­puter helper in the Iron Man movies. “Finally building my own JARVIS!” is a pop­ular refrain among enthu­si­astic AI tinkerers. (Not least because it’s flattering: “If my com­puter is Jarvis, I guess that makes me Tony Stark … ”)

However, the most common appli­ca­tion of a per­sonal Jarvis seems to be … tinkering with one’s per­sonal Jarvis. “Gotta get my tools just right” isn’t a new phenomenon, of course, but/and it’s useful to notice its recur­rence here.

So I just want to say: Jarvis wants to help you DO something! Or make something, or inves­ti­gate something.

Con­tin­uing a happy rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’ve been struck by the pre­science and appeal of the crew’s col­lab­o­ra­tive rela­tion­ship with their ship’s great anony­mous Com­puter. As cool as Jarvis is, I’ll argue that this bravura scene from TNG is actu­ally a much richer pic­ture of what might be pos­sible with com­puter collaborators. Geordi solves a mys­tery using the Com­puter and the holodeck together — go watch, it’s great.