Uppsala

Heading to the WASP conference. The Wallenberg family's AI initiative. I am a spectator, or an imposter.

It is also my hometown, Uppsala.

I take the opportunity to go to Ofvandahls Hovkonditori during a break. The waitress smiles. I am close to saying that I interned here twenty-five years ago. I don't.

Instead, I hear the man behind me fire his shot. He used to have coffee here thirty years ago.

Very cool response.

I’m guessing no one shares memories with the baker clearing up behind her.

It makes my skin crawl.

Listening to the conference talks is like the rare occasions I go to church. Most of it goes over my head, but there are flickers of light. Like when a robotics researcher talks about how easy text and images are to use as input for AI-controlled robots. But how she struggles to make touch and smell work.

Complicated. Time-consuming. And constant ethical problems. AI used by governments and the military. Instructions contained in so-called black boxes, inaccessible to the public. Affecting the decisions of the social insurance office or who becomes a drone target. Three-year-olds with plastic toys mistaken for being armed. It has happened. In the Netherlands, a poorly written algorithm led to systematic discrimination against those born abroad. The government had to resign.

Some smart people. Some experienced speakers. Others more nervous. It's hard not to assess and judge the person on stage. Sometimes justified. Like when a doctoral student begins with a comparison between an insect's four legs and a human's two. And continues the analogy. It’s not just me, with a father who is an entomologist, who squirms. Insects have six legs.

People in Uppsala are built differently than in Stockholm.

I remember this when I moved to Stockholm. The tolerance for not knowing was high. Almost preferred. I was astonished by it.

I also remember a pub quiz in Söder where I ended up on a team with others from Uppsala. Suddenly, I was sitting among people who knew every reference to Seinfeld, Northern Soul, history, and natural science. We got everything right.

Boastful.

Back in Stockholm, with this haughty attitude, I end up at a dinner for four. I get annoyed by something S says. That the subway should be built in Rome without regard for the history underground. I protest. She won't back down.

Taking it home with me.

Discovering that it is not summer yet at all. I have been fooled by the magnolia, whose flowers bloom before it has leaves. I am freezing.

Looking for a car coat. Strange that I have worn such coats for years without knowing what they are called.

Meeting up with two friends at Caffé Poli on Kungsholmen. I have promised to go there every week even though I no longer live there. We are a trio from a previous road trip through Europe. A trip where something disappeared along the way. The three of us haven't seen each other since then.

We are fumbling for something that went wrong. Something that not even a new road trip will solve.