My Name is W. Edwards Deming: Architect of Quality and Systems Thinking I was born in 1900 in Sioux City, Iowa, at the dawn of a century defined by invention and rapid change. As a child, I was fascinated by patterns—how numbers connected, how processes worked, and how even ordinary tasks had hidden rhythms beneath them. This early interest led me to engineering and mathematics, fields that would shape my understanding of how the world fit together. I never looked at events a

My Name is Joseph Weizenbaum: Creator of ELIZA and Early Critic of AI I was born in 1923 in Berlin, and from an early age I learned what it meant for machines and people to share complicated relationships. My family fled Nazi Germany when I was a child, and those experiences shaped my views on authority, responsibility, and the power humans give to systems they don’t fully understand. Before I ever wrote a line of code, I understood that technology always exists inside human

What Coding Really Does in an AI Workflow What Coding Really Does in an AI Workflow – Told by Zack Edwards. When I first began working with AI systems, I didn’t realize how simple the core idea really was: coding is nothing more than giving a machine instructions, step by step, in a language it understands. You don’t need to be a master programmer to see how it fits together. Coding is the translator between your imagination and the machine’s ability to act. Without it, AI is

My Name is Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple Computer My earliest memories of creativity came not from computers but from the garage workshops of my childhood. My father taught me that even the inside of a device—something no customer would ever see—should be beautiful. That lesson became the foundation of my obsession with craftsmanship. I was a restless kid, endlessly curious and often frustrated by limitations. When I met Steve Wozniak, I found someone whose brilliance match

My Name is Luca Pacioli: Father of Accounting I was born in 1447 in the quiet Tuscan town of Sansepolcro, a place of stone streets, quiet workshops, and the hum of merchants settling their accounts at dusk. I was not born into wealth, nor did I imagine a life that would one day shape how the world measures its fortunes. Yet numbers fascinated me even as a boy. I watched merchants tally sales with counters on wooden boards, marveling at how the movement of small stones could d

My Name is John Tukey: Explorer of Data and Quiet Revolutionary in Statistics My name is John Tukey, and I was born in 1915 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, into a world that had not yet learned to appreciate the hidden stories buried inside numbers. My parents were educators who filled our home with books, puzzles, and challenges. From an early age, I learned that thinking was not something to fear but something to enjoy. I did not yet know the term “data exploration,” but I w

My Name is David Ogilvy: Founder of Ogilvy & Mather I was never meant to be an advertising man, at least not according to the expectations of my youth. I wandered through occupations like a restless traveler—chef, farmer, salesman—each role teaching me more about people than any formal classroom ever could. I learned what stirred desire, what shaped trust, and what caused suspicion. These early lessons would one day become the backbone of my life’s work.   Learning the Power

My Name is John Whitney Sr.: Pioneer of Computer Animation I was born in 1917, long before digital screens lit up our world, yet even in my childhood I was fascinated by movement—how patterns shifted, how shapes danced, how sound and motion could echo one another. Music was my first teacher. The spinning of a melody, the structure of a chord, the rhythm of a composition—these became the foundation of everything I would later build. While other children sketched pictures, I im

My Name is Georges Méliès: Illusionist, Filmmaker, and Pioneer of Moving Images I was born in Paris in 1861, long before machines learned to speak, long before films danced across screens. As a child, I was captivated by gears, toys, clocks, and anything that transformed one thing into another. My fascination with illusion began early. When other children played in the street, I hid backstage in small theaters, watching magicians turn scarves into birds and shadows into stori

My Name is Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the Telephone I was born into a family where sound was not simply heard, but studied, shaped, and explored. My father trained teachers to work with the deaf. My mother slowly lost her hearing while I was still a boy. These two influences guided my curiosity. I learned early that sound carried emotion, meaning, and connection, and that losing it could feel like losing a bridge to the world. I wanted to understand sound deeply enoug

Foundations of AI Image Generation When I teach students about AI image generation, I like to begin not with mathematics, but with imagination. Picture yourself standing at the entrance of a vast workshop filled with glowing screens, swirling patterns, and canvases that paint themselves. It looks magical, but everything inside works according to rules—rules that allow a computer to turn simple words into detailed pictures. Today, I’m going to walk you through this workshop an

The Evolution of Human–AI Translation I remember first encountering language translation as a painstaking human art, one that relied heavily on thick dictionaries, margin notes, and long nights spent flipping between pages. Translators worked word by word, then sentence by sentence, stitching meaning together with careful attention to grammar and cultural nuance. It was a process that required patience, memory, and instinct. Every translation was a negotiation between two wor

My Name is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Master Storyteller, Playwright, Scientist, and Systems Thinker I was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1749, into a home where books lined the walls and curiosity was encouraged as if it were the very air we breathed. From the earliest age, I felt a pull toward stories—not simply reading them, but discovering how they worked, how human emotion could thread itself across a page and bind one heart to another. While other children played games i

My Name is Florence Nightingale: Pioneer of Modern Nursing and Data Reporting I was born in 1820, in the quiet town of Florence, Italy, during a family tour that inspired my name. From a young age, I sensed a calling toward service, one that defied the expectations placed upon a woman of my education and social standing. While others saw my future in polite society, I felt drawn toward work that required discipline, order, and a sharp mind. Numbers fascinated me. Patterns whi

Chapter 9: Writing with AI: Essays, Articles, and ReportsMy Name is George Orwell: The Master of Clear Thought and Ethical Language I was born Eric Arthur Blair in 1903, in British India, where my father served in the colonial civil service. My childhood was marked by quiet observation — the kind that breeds both curiosity and discomfort. I was educated in England, where the ideals of empire and class superiority were taught as unquestionable truths. Yet, I could never shake

My Name is John von Neumann: The Architect of Modern Computing From the time I was a child in Budapest, I saw the world as a system waiting to be understood through numbers and logic. My father hoped I would go into business, but my fascination with mathematics overruled every other path. By the time I was eight, I could divide eight-digit numbers in my head. Mathematics was not a subject to me—it was the very language of the universe.   Crossing Disciplines When I moved thro

My Name is René Descartes: The Philosopher of Doubt I was born in 1596 in La Haye, France, a quiet village that would one day bear my name. From my earliest years, I was frail in body but restless in mind. My father sent me to the Jesuit college at La Flèche, one of the finest schools in Europe, where I learned philosophy, mathematics, and the sciences of the time. Yet, as I absorbed all that was taught, I could not silence a growing unease—how much of this knowledge was trul

My Name is Grace Hopper: The Systems Architect and Educator I was born in 1906 in New York City, a time when few could imagine a world run by machines that understood our words. As a child, I was insatiably curious—once taking apart every alarm clock in our house just to see how they worked. My mother encouraged my curiosity, telling me that questions were the beginning of wisdom. That lesson would guide me for the rest of my life.   A Woman in a Man’s World When I joined Yal

My Name is Carl Jung: The Psychologist of the Human Mind I was born in Switzerland in 1875, a land of quiet lakes and reflective mountains — an appropriate home for one who would spend his life studying reflection of another kind: the reflection of the soul. From my earliest years, I was aware of two worlds — the outer world of people and the inner world of symbols, dreams, and shadows. When I listened to others, I learned that what they said was rarely what they meant. Their

My Name is Marie Curie: The Scientist Who Changed Medicine I was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1867, when my country lived under Russian rule. My parents were teachers, and from them I inherited a deep love for learning. Yet opportunities for women were few, and I often studied in secret, hungry for knowledge that seemed always just out of reach. My heart was drawn to physics and chemistry—the invisible worlds that governed all life. When I finally left for Paris to study at the