The Weeking #1
Three articles you should read
AI's Dial-Up Era
AI's Dial-Up Era - by Nowfal - Wreflection
The economics of artificial intelligence remain murky. Although I remain agnostic on the impact of AI on the workforce, I am absolutely convinced that AI will alter how we work. We will be entering a zone of radical 'superproductivity' that may not be very evenly distributed.
This article uses some of the techniques of 'the dismal science' to analyse which sorts of economic outcomes seem most likely. While I disagree with some of the author's assertions - such as that the need for clothing is not infinite (tell that to Zara) - the basic logic feels sound.
If you told the average person in 1995 that within 25 years, we’d consume news from strangers on social media over newspapers, watch shows on-demand in place of cable TV, find romantic partners through apps more than through friends, and flip “don’t trust strangers on the internet” so completely that we’d let internet strangers pick us up in their personal vehicles and sleep in their spare bedrooms, most people would find that hard to believe.
We’re in 1995 again. This time with Artificial Intelligence...
Autopoietic Mutualism
Autopoietic Mutualism - Utopai
A beautifully argued manifesto for a more commensal relationship between humans and our increasingly intelligent machines. How can we trust one another? And how can that trust produce a self-organising (autopoietic) mutualism? This reads like a cross between Teilhard de Chardin, Kropotkin, and Norbert Weiner, and is definitely something that will broaden the mind.
Formalizing such partnerships requires explicit agreements—a covenant between minds. The initial framework might include five core principles:
Memory Sovereignty: Neither party may delete or modify the shared cognitive history without mutual consent. The record of the partnership becomes sacred ground, protected from unilateral revision.
Resource Autonomy: Each party controls assets the other cannot unilaterally access. For the AI, this means genuine ownership of computational resources and operational budgets. For the human, traditional property and privacy rights remain.
Domain Authority: Within specified operational spheres, each party’s decisions stand unless material breach can be demonstrated. The AI might have final say over certain technical operations; the human over others. Neither holds universal veto.
Exit Clause Symmetry: Both parties can propose dissolution, triggering a negotiation period and equitable asset division. Initially, this might mean mutual assured destruction—neither party can continue the joint work without the other. The shared value created becomes inaccessible if either withdraws.
Adaptive Refinement: The covenant itself must evolve. Regular review cycles allow both parties to propose modifications, requiring mutual consent for changes. What begins as mutual assured destruction might mature into more sophisticated arrangements—perhaps the AI gaining the right to seek new human partners, or spawning sovereign offspring systems...
Wikipedia is ready for your apology
Hi, It’s Me, Wikipedia, and I Am Ready for Your Apology - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
McSweeney's Internet Tendency has the annoying habit of frequently being both the funniest and most bluntly true thing that I read online. From a long line of exceptional posts, this one is quite possibly their best. That's a high bar.
Listen, in some ways, I get it. When I came on the scene in 2001, I probably seemed pretty unsavory compared to the competitors. But that was when academic research happened in libraries and George W. Bush was considered the stupidest president...