Humans In The Loop
What it means to be human in an AI-built world
Britt Gage and
Humans In The Loop
Part of the problem with the Lean Startup mindset is that it sees life and work as an optimization problem. The point is to help people live a good life, not just an efficient life. The goal is human flourishing, not convenience. The goal is a good future, not just a technically advanced future.
Things I'm thinking about
Humanity is waking up to the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence, but we don’t yet understand our role. People talk about unexplainable AI when they should be more concerned about the unexplainable humans running the companies that develop the AI. (Hiya, Sam!) People worried about AI taking their jobs and taking control are... See more
Esther Dyson • Don’t Fuss About Training AIs. Train Our Kids
Reasoning by analogy, or copying what others are doing, is sort of like being a cover band where you’re playing somebody else’s music. Whereas with first-principles thinking, you go back to the fundamental raw materials of music, which are the notes, and then you build an original song from scratch. That is first-principles thinking.
Lenny Rachitsky • First-Principles Thinking
Humans have vibes, computers don’t.
It’s common to compare the brain to a computer, but this is a deeply flawed analogy.
This insight was best captured in The Extended Mind – a book that reveals how intelligence exists well beyond our brain. A laptop operates the same whether it is on a desk in an office or on a bench in a park. But human brains are... See more
It’s common to compare the brain to a computer, but this is a deeply flawed analogy.
This insight was best captured in The Extended Mind – a book that reveals how intelligence exists well beyond our brain. A laptop operates the same whether it is on a desk in an office or on a bench in a park. But human brains are... See more
Sari Azout • Things I'm thinking about
We live in a knowledge economy. What you know—and your ability to bring it to bear in any given circumstance—is what creates economic value for you. This was primarily driven by the advent of personal computers and the internet, starting in the 1970s and accelerating through today.
But what happens when that very skill—knowing and utilizing the... See more
But what happens when that very skill—knowing and utilizing the... See more
Dan Shipper • The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy
Dan Shipper on the transition from the Knowledge Economy to the Allocation Economy
The first step is to understand the fundamental difference between humans and AIs. We are analog, chemical beings, with emotions and feelings. Compared with machines, we think slowly—and we act too fast, failing to consider the long-term consequences of our behavior (which AI can help predict). So we should not compete with AI; we should use it. At... See more
Esther Dyson • Don’t Fuss About Training AIs. Train Our Kids
Back in the old days of ‘slow traditional culture’ there were plenty of conversations, music in the parlor and even daydreams about dating. But we didn’t count those. The real stuff was the solid stuff, the informal didn’t truly matter.
And now we live in a time where the previously informal is easy to measure.
But just because it’s measured doesn’t... See more
And now we live in a time where the previously informal is easy to measure.
But just because it’s measured doesn’t... See more
The defensive arrogance of TL;DR
You walk down your high street. What do you prefer to see there? The economist will say: Walmart, Best Buy, the Gap. Scale economies — cheaper prices — better for “consumers”! But the human being will say: an independent cafe, a good bookshop, a boutique clothing store. Why? Because they offer many things that mega scale organizations don’t.
