Aeon essay: if computers count all the petals, who tastes the cherries?
round · x · 2026-09-18
Designer Liam Spradlin's Aeon essay "Who will taste the cherries?" examines the computist dream of debugging subjectivity out of human knowledge to create a pure, frictionless world. Opening from his 2015 experience in a Silicon Valley prototype kitchen — where researchers built a machine to cook Michelin-grade dishes at the press of a button and relied on chefs' sensory inventory forms — Spradlin uses it as a metaphor for the AI era: as computation automates the quantifiable, whether subjective experience like "tasting the cherries" can ever be replaced remains a fundamental question.
Related event: Aeon Essay: In the Age of Computism, Who Will Taste the Cherries?(2 posts)→
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