"The Unabomber is right that technology is a holistic, self-perpetuating machine. He is wrong to bomb it for many reasons, not the least is that the machine of civilization offers us more actual freedoms than the alternative. There is a cost to run this machine, a cost we are only beginning to reckon with, but so far the gains from this ever enlarging technium outweigh the alternative of no machine at all."
I think Kelly agrees with this point. Kaczynski being "right" is really scoped to the argument that technology is a self-perpetuating machine that is not entirely within human control to direct.
Read this chapter in 'What Technology Wants'. The technium operating as a living organism takes a new form in the context of LLMs - especially when considering these technologies are emulating source content created by humans. If generated information breaks conventions of quality checking (like SEO ranking and upvotes) it would appear that the technium is biased towards a different kind of validation mechanism - or perhaps none at all.
"Good tools are hard to find, hard to evaluate, hard to learn. We have constraints, we have biases, we have shortcomings. But that’s all part of the work."
Before I worked at a startup I was obsessed with learning the latest and greatest tool. Then I learned that the best thing to get the job done is usually the thing you already know. Now I'm back to indexing heavily on researching the right tool for the job. I feel this is the cycle that we are destined to repeat again and again.
One tamer one is the time I stopped to help a woman whose car broke down on the side of Route 5 near Camp Pendleton. Her phone had died and she was stuck there waiting for help. I didn't have a phone, but knew there was a Marine Base nearby so drove there to get help. Unfortunately it was dark and I went down the wrong road and suddenly see a Marine running after my car with an M-16. Luckily he didn't shoot, laughed at my Hawaii Driver's License, and directed me to a nearby gas station, where we were able to phone for help.
Not having a phone makes every day an adventure! :)
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