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The Daily Triptych002 / 365

2 JAN 2026

Day 2

Nature loves to hide.

Heraclitus · Fragments
A small carved ivory sculpture of two reindeer swimming in line, heads raised, antlers laid flat along their backs, their bodies tapering as if submerged in water.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

The Swimming Reindeer

Magdalenian · 111th century BC · Mammoth ivory

A sculptor in the 111th century BC watched reindeer closely enough to carve their swimming posture from memory, working in ivory with stone tools on an object smaller than a human palm.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Data Is the Model

Foundations · Data is the model · The Pile (800GB, 2020)

A system trained on biased examples will reproduce that bias with confidence, because it has no other source of truth. The regularities in the data become the regularities in the model.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

Written before source checking was enforced · facts in this lesson are unverified

Rows of life-sized terracotta figures standing in excavated earth pits, each with distinct facial features, dressed in armoured tunics, their surfaces a uniform grey.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Terracotta Army

Qin dynasty · 248 BC · Xi'an

Every warrior was built from standardised parts — legs, torsos, arms cast in sections — but no two faces are alike. And all of it was painted.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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