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Chapters

This textbook is organized into 19 chapters across 5 units, covering 140 concepts.

Unit 1: The Foundation of Unicorn Studies

  1. A Brief and Totally Accurate History of Unicorns — Traces the unicorn from ancient mythology through medieval lore to modern culture and symbolism.
  2. Taxonomy of Mythical Beasts — Introduces all mythical creatures, foundational literary concepts, and the classification system for beasts.
  3. The Unicorn-Industrial Complex — Maps beast allegories to real-world patterns while exploring venture capital, startup mythology, and the billion-dollar unicorn metaphor.

Unit 2: AI and the Myth of Progress

  1. The Emperor's New Algorithm — Covers AI fundamentals, the hype cycle, and AI hype culture. Based on true events.
  2. Deer in the Headlights — Examines why people freeze when confronted with technological change and introduces digital literacy, critical thinking, and AI literacy.
  3. The Ostrich Academy — Explores institutional resistance, committee paralysis, and the growing education technology gap.
  4. The Job Thief: A Dragon's Tale — Tells the story of a well-meaning dragon who keeps accidentally automating everyone's jobs.

Unit 3: Mythical Beasts in Modern Society

  1. Centaur Workforce — Examines human-AI collaboration through creatures who are frankly tired of the metaphor.
  2. Phoenix Rising — Stories of reinvention through reskilling, upskilling, and the coding bootcamp myth.
  3. The Siren Song of Automation — How the promise of "set it and forget it" lures organizations onto the rocks.
  4. Unicorn Spotting — A practical guide to identifying exaggerated claims about AI capabilities.

Unit 4: The Future of Mythical Intelligence

  1. Breeding Better Unicorns with AI — Speculates on how generative AI could design the perfect mythical creature.
  2. The Grand Council of Mythical Beasts — A fictional summit where all mythical creatures discuss the AI threat to their livelihoods.
  3. The Last Textbook — A meta-fictional conclusion in which this textbook becomes self-aware and writes its own sequel.

Unit 5: Unicorns and Other Technology Fantasies

  1. Economically Viable Quantum Computing — Compares the breathless promise of quantum supremacy to the breathless promise of a horse with a horn.
  2. Efficient Blockchain — Explores the parallels between blockchain's promise and the unicorn's promise. The dragon wins on energy efficiency.
  3. Ethical Bitcoin — Examines the heroic efforts to make cryptocurrency environmentally sustainable. Someone checked the math.
  4. The Metaverse: A Kraken's Tale — Examines the spectacular rise and quieter deflation of metaverse hype, and why legless avatars never replaced reality.
  5. The Bestiary of Vaporware — A comprehensive field guide comparing mythical creatures to mythical technologies.

How to Use This Textbook

Chapters are designed to be read in order, as concepts build on each other following the learning graph dependencies. Each chapter lists its prerequisite chapters. Units 1-3 form the core narrative arc. Unit 4 brings the threads together. Unit 5 applies the analytical framework to specific technology fantasies and can be read in any order after Unit 2.

Note: Each chapter includes a list of concepts covered. Make sure to complete prerequisites before moving to advanced chapters.