I discussed the ramifications this digital "information explosion" on another Substack a few days back: "Pre-internet: information (and disinformation) about the world beyond the individual's direct experience was essentially a scarce resource. Demand exceeded supply. The internet has changed this information 'landscape' in profound ways that we as a civilisation have hardly begun to come to terms with. The gigantic 'supply' of digital information/disinformation coming at you now greatly exceeds both the demand for it...and one's ability to properly process it.
Pre-internet: being a well-informed citizen required a dogged curiosity and 'leg work' (searching in libraries etc). Now abundant information is available in seconds but this has created a different problem for the would-be informed citizen. Keeping sane and 'centred' as a citizen now involves a learning how to quickly assess the provenance of and also how to partially shield oneself against a great noisy digital wind.
The internet makes information more available, but its nature also discourages people from actually turning that information into understanding. The nature of the medium encourages users to use it as a device for electronic stimulation more than as a means of gaining knowledge. In fact, the typical user sees the internet as an implement that allows them to avoid the development of knowledge, because the medium encourages the user to believe that it supplants the need to gain knowledge.
Unfortunately, this isn't the case: you could learn to wire a house using the internet, but if you tried to use the internet as a quick reference to learn how to fix wiring problems, you would probably electrocute yourself. The medium encourages this shallow referential use, and that is how most people interact with it.
This is an empirical issue. For example, is it the case that, since the advent of the internet, more people electrocute themselves because they use the internet as a quick reference for DIY fixing of wiring problems? (I don't know the answer.) Conversely, is it the case that few people become adequately competent as DIY electricians thanks to the internet? (Again, I don't know the answer.)
We must ask: Compared to what? For example, it's not obvious to me that, say, traditional classroom instruction does more than the does internet to encourage people actually to turn information into understanding.
My expression of the idea is mine, but I'm adapting the claims from Cal Newport's books and from Nicholas Carr's books about the nature of the internet medium. All of those works are speculative, and only some of Carr's books are backed by empirical research. And in my view, without having cite checked Carr's book, the parts of his books that relied on empirical research were the least persuasive parts by far.
You're holding my metaphor to a standard that I did not set it to. This is like responding to a Socratic parable by asking Socrates if he has a study for that (a response ironically characteristic of internet discourse).
I really can't tell if people are genuinely interested in the "content" produced by AI or if the focus on content is just because that is "easy" versus say, walking. Making the AI write something was I guess baked into the cake from the beginning and it's turned out to be pretty good at it.
Golden Gate Claude was easily the high water mark for me there. I was laugh-crying, kind of hyperventilating as you do when that happens, like my kid did when he was six and discovered the "Pussy and the Painkiller" passage in Tom Sawyer and tried gaspingly to read it aloud to me.
I think the analog existence of our own cat was doing a lot of work there, by the way, in helping make it so funny to him. He hadn't much familiarity with aunts though, or patent medicines.
But content handwringing aside, there seem like 2 poles to all this fuss about AI. There's a smart guy like Musk who's seemingly read a book on ecology and fears that AI could in the far future make people unnecessary and thus lazy or obsolete; and then there's people who fear AI because they see it being used to elect a Donald Trump or raise up an Elon Musk.
Were you old enough during the JFK assassination to have consumed news on it?
What would you say is different from the Trump assassination so far?
My Mom watches CNN (etc) to get her news on it, but I get it straight from the internet (X, etc) and it's amazing how fast and detailed information comes out by comparison.
I was in 5th grade ( I think) when JFK was shot. The only think I remember is going home at lunch break and turning on the TV to find out what was going on. I'm with you now -- I don't ever watch TV.
I discussed the ramifications this digital "information explosion" on another Substack a few days back: "Pre-internet: information (and disinformation) about the world beyond the individual's direct experience was essentially a scarce resource. Demand exceeded supply. The internet has changed this information 'landscape' in profound ways that we as a civilisation have hardly begun to come to terms with. The gigantic 'supply' of digital information/disinformation coming at you now greatly exceeds both the demand for it...and one's ability to properly process it.
Pre-internet: being a well-informed citizen required a dogged curiosity and 'leg work' (searching in libraries etc). Now abundant information is available in seconds but this has created a different problem for the would-be informed citizen. Keeping sane and 'centred' as a citizen now involves a learning how to quickly assess the provenance of and also how to partially shield oneself against a great noisy digital wind.
The internet makes information more available, but its nature also discourages people from actually turning that information into understanding. The nature of the medium encourages users to use it as a device for electronic stimulation more than as a means of gaining knowledge. In fact, the typical user sees the internet as an implement that allows them to avoid the development of knowledge, because the medium encourages the user to believe that it supplants the need to gain knowledge.
Unfortunately, this isn't the case: you could learn to wire a house using the internet, but if you tried to use the internet as a quick reference to learn how to fix wiring problems, you would probably electrocute yourself. The medium encourages this shallow referential use, and that is how most people interact with it.
This is an empirical issue. For example, is it the case that, since the advent of the internet, more people electrocute themselves because they use the internet as a quick reference for DIY fixing of wiring problems? (I don't know the answer.) Conversely, is it the case that few people become adequately competent as DIY electricians thanks to the internet? (Again, I don't know the answer.)
We must ask: Compared to what? For example, it's not obvious to me that, say, traditional classroom instruction does more than the does internet to encourage people actually to turn information into understanding.
My expression of the idea is mine, but I'm adapting the claims from Cal Newport's books and from Nicholas Carr's books about the nature of the internet medium. All of those works are speculative, and only some of Carr's books are backed by empirical research. And in my view, without having cite checked Carr's book, the parts of his books that relied on empirical research were the least persuasive parts by far.
You're holding my metaphor to a standard that I did not set it to. This is like responding to a Socratic parable by asking Socrates if he has a study for that (a response ironically characteristic of internet discourse).
I really can't tell if people are genuinely interested in the "content" produced by AI or if the focus on content is just because that is "easy" versus say, walking. Making the AI write something was I guess baked into the cake from the beginning and it's turned out to be pretty good at it.
Golden Gate Claude was easily the high water mark for me there. I was laugh-crying, kind of hyperventilating as you do when that happens, like my kid did when he was six and discovered the "Pussy and the Painkiller" passage in Tom Sawyer and tried gaspingly to read it aloud to me.
I think the analog existence of our own cat was doing a lot of work there, by the way, in helping make it so funny to him. He hadn't much familiarity with aunts though, or patent medicines.
But content handwringing aside, there seem like 2 poles to all this fuss about AI. There's a smart guy like Musk who's seemingly read a book on ecology and fears that AI could in the far future make people unnecessary and thus lazy or obsolete; and then there's people who fear AI because they see it being used to elect a Donald Trump or raise up an Elon Musk.
Information utilities curated by LLMs have their problems. Witness the recent debacle at Google. The bias won’t always be so blatantly obvious.
Sorry -- what recent debacle at Google?
Smile when you say that.
And switch your default search engine to DuckDuckGo.
I'm being serious, I don't know what you mean by the debacle at Google.
It drew pictures of black people in Nazi uniforms in order to be inclusive
Ah, thank you. That was indeed a debacle. I guess I have a short memory.
There are also studies which indicate that Google search results are biased.
It’s nature’s eternal struggle, not just the internet’s!
I'm not sure why we can't end up with a lot of both centralization and decentralization.
Arnold,
Were you old enough during the JFK assassination to have consumed news on it?
What would you say is different from the Trump assassination so far?
My Mom watches CNN (etc) to get her news on it, but I get it straight from the internet (X, etc) and it's amazing how fast and detailed information comes out by comparison.
I was in 5th grade ( I think) when JFK was shot. The only think I remember is going home at lunch break and turning on the TV to find out what was going on. I'm with you now -- I don't ever watch TV.
My wife is an architect. She has worked on a very prestigious museum in DC, and considers it a capstone of her career.
It's ugly.
I don't mean the architecture. The architecture has merit. It was built at a time an in a fashion that is art, and her work is art.
But the museum is ugly. I don't even like the idea of my children going there.
I've been in it. The art is ugly. The people who run it are ugly. The people who visit it are ugly. The procedures are ugly. The city its in are ugly.
The progs have taken so much from us. I imagine that it's as much a problem in Dallas as it is in DC. They eat cities.
So he’s found some people pretending to be Indians, or actual Indians from elsewhere,
to make cynical use of?
I struggle to think of a place outside, perhaps Las Vegas, where I’ve never been - that could be described by both the words “top notch” and “casino”.
Many distinct issues are entangled.
Having used it some, I'd say I trust Yelp reviews about as far, to quote my grandfather, as I could spit a mouthful of needles.
Just my anecdotal take.