I suspect millions of people from my generation probably have comparable stories to tell: if not of sports simulations then of Dungeons & Dragons, or the geopolitical strategy of games like Diplomacy, a kind of chess superimposed onto actual history.

The computer is not, in our opinion, a good model of the mind, but it is as the trumpet is to the orchestra - you really need it. And so, we have very massive simulations in computers because the problem is, of course, very complex.

Nvidia's self-driving-car business grew out of a long-standing relationship with auto companies. Car guys used Nvidia chips for computer-aided design, then used Nvidia supercomputer chips to do crash simulations. When the car guys started thinking about autonomous vehicles, Nvidia leaped at the chance to help them solve the problem.

In the ideal classroom the teacher is either spending all of their time doing deep interventions with students on a one-on-one basis or facilitating true interactivity - labs simulations projects.