A Portentous Reunion

19 hours ago

The author attended their 30th college reunion in 2026 where AI's impact on knowledge work was a top concern among peers.
Many discussions centered on nostalgia, particularly for a college-era game called BattleTris, which the author co-created in the 1990s.
BattleTris was a two-player networked Tetris variant where players could buy weapons to disrupt opponents, developed during college and popular among students.
The game was revived years later at Sun Microsystems, leading to memorable moments, including the author's future wife winning a game, which a friend jokingly said meant they should marry.
After falling into disuse due to work on projects like DTrace, BattleTris was recently resurrected with the help of Claude, an AI, which fixed bugs and ported it to modern systems.
During the reunion, the author and friends played BattleTris again, experiencing a crash that Claude helped diagnose and fix, allowing them to enjoy the game and relive fond memories.
The author reflects that LLMs like Claude are powerful tools that can enable profoundly human experiences, countering fears of dehumanization, and sees potential for more such positive moments in the future.

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