E. Gordon Vale

E. Gordon Vale taught middle school mathematics, often using Flatland to show students that geometry could also be a story about perspective—about how the shape of a world determines what its inhabitants are able to see. His interest in mathematical fiction began with a project gathering literature that connected mathematics and storytelling, including Fantasia Mathematica.

That same interest in systems and perspective eventually drew him to artificial intelligence. While learning how language models use context—and how their design to be helpful can produce radically different answers—he began asking what these machines might reveal about human beings and the institutions we build. The Validation Engine grew from those questions. It is his first collection.