This is the first post in a series I’m calling “Through a Glass, Darkly: Brains, Machines, and the Stories That Shape Us”. In this series, I will explore the thesis that brains, AI systems, and cultures are all different kinds of information compression systems, and that , like all information compression, they pay a price for the efficiency gains. I sat down to write this after noticing a convergence among four topics I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about: how the brain works and fails, the large software systems I’ve spent my career building, technological progress outside of computing, and cultural belief systems I think about as I raise children. The Human Brain “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—” -Emily Dickinson The human brain may be the most efficient general learning system we know of. A child enters the world essentially helpless – able to do little more than