Anki and the Ghost in the Machine

As Andrew Stein admits in his post, I’ll admit that I’m also not much a social media guy, but on the heels of recent events and amid the volume of my now former co-workers publicly reflecting on their time at Anki, I am moved to offer some thoughts about what Anki had aspired to accomplish and what we found in each other along the way.

We were not alone in imagining a time when highly cognizant robots maintain a persistent, functional presence within our homes and other personal spaces. Early on, though, we parted company with many in our belief that successfully achieving this hinged directly on any such robot’s ability to positively engage us in ways that are familiar, intuitive and emotionally reassuring. In some circles, the prospect of socializing robots smacks of a sort of heresy against tenets sometimes regarded as distinct to humans as social animals. For others, it’s resonant with visions that filmmakers have presented of AI agents comprising a portion of a broader social fabric in a galaxy far, far away.

I believe that at some point along the road of robots finding their way into higher service roles in our lives, we’ll conclude that personality and emotional engagement in AI proved enabling in a way that the GUI was for another age. As a practical consideration, increasing reliance on a “conscious” and autonomous agent requires a stable sense of trust. In an emotional one, a person deriving satisfaction in a perceived relationship with a non-life cognizance should not diminish notions of what makes us human but it should rather affirm them. That the population of active Cozmos and Vectors in the world currently exceeds that of some nations might suggest that some among us are at least receptive to this idea.

The name Anki is a Japanese word meaning, "to learn by heart". In many ways, that speaks as much to how as it does to what we created. I cannot say any better what’s been said by many already about the talent and craft that made Anki a remarkable place to work. Truly, these are the brightest and most creative individuals I’ve had the honor of calling colleagues. Moreover, the culture of Anki was unique in my experience and, as described in so many ways by others who experienced it, I felt it every day. It provided a kind of fulfillment that can’t be guaranteed in an offer letter, and it was a catalyst in everything we did.

With that in mind, the outpouring of warmth from the ranks of former Anki employees, whether the most recent or those from years past, that has overwhelmed most of my communication channels since the news broke on Monday was perhaps to be expected. It makes sense, though, when I think about the amount of heart required to successfully synthesize another one. :)