The Docile Learner
There is a scene that repeats itself, at this hour, in several million browser tabs. A learner sits before a screen. The screen asks a question. The learner answers. Somewhere — in a server that nobody has ever visited, in a Dutch or Irish data centre cooled by the North Sea — a probability is updated. A number that did not exist a moment ago now exists, and it stands for the learner. The number is small: a scalar between zero and one, or a vector of a few dozen dimensions. But it is, for the duration of the session, who the learner is to the machine. The next question will be selected on its basis. The next hint, withheld or granted, on its basis. The next suggested lesson, the next notification, the congratulatory animation of a green owl or a red flame — all of it flows from this number.