re-enchanted decision-making

“More and more young, intellectually inclined, and politically heterodox thinkers are showing disillusionment with the contemporary faith in technocracy and personal autonomy. They see this combination as having contributed to the fundamentally alienating character of modern Western life. The chipper, distinctly liberal optimism of rationalist... See more

Elon Musk recently told Tesla executives he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy, so he wants to pause hiring and cut the company’s workforce. This is perhaps not the best way to run a business, but it is indicative of the current mood — a lot of people have a sense that something’s just off in the economy, or it’s about to be. There’s this... See more

In other words, “vibes” are similar to the approximations that machine learning systems use, and the two feed off of each other synergistically. The situation is precisely encapsulated by Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

“When we emphasize the artificially quantized, we lose access to the glorious in-between where we all actually live. [...] We lose access to the squishy, indeterminate, and speculative. [...] We are flying with instruments alone.” - Douglas Rushkoff