Enjoyed another article. I still have a few complete sets of baseball cards from the early 1970’s, such fun!
On another note, I have been mildly entertaining myself by exploring what Grok will accept as truth, thus identifying its biases. I call it “all knowing Grok”
Excellent post. I grew up on a small family ranch in Montana. A strong sense of curiosity is embedded in my brain. Some days almost too much as we learn hands on work, reading, listening, seeing the world around us. Had a high school math teacher who challenged us hard to learn and understand using problems of the week ala Parade Magazine's Marilyn vos Savant's brainteasers. No baseball or other sports. BS Engineering Physics, MBA Operations Research, PhD Industrial Engineering. Forty years in manufacturing technical, environmental, and quality assurance work. Excited about the Internet. Started a technical literature search service in 1968 which the company continued for 25 years. Now retired and still curious. Critical thinking comes naturally in response to any author. Still don't think we have accustomed ourselves to TV, much less Social Media, and now AI. Still an optimist believing human wisdom will see us through.
Thanks for sharing this, Bill. Your Montana ranch experience perfectly illustrates how real learning happens through direct engagement with the world. I love how you describe curiosity as being 'embedded in your brain' through hands-on work. I share your optimism about human wisdom, though I think we'll have to fight to preserve spaces for it. The kind of critical thinking that comes naturally from real-world problem solving is exactly what we need to maintain as these technologies advance.
"Yes, information became abundant, but wisdom became scarce."
I did not have that kind of childhood with a lot of free space to roam, learn, and feel. I happened to be a glued-to-the-desk nerd who likes reading, since early childhood. I have collected a lot of diverse knowledge from books, but I have very little hands-on experience. My fingers are all thumbs, anyway. Actually, all my fingers are toes, really. One thing I did learn to appreciate is the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom. And I was blessed with mostly good teachers, one outstanding, before entering college. It seems wisdom is more and more difficult to find these days. And trying to find wisdom from national leaders appears to be next to impossible.
Josh, Excellent, insightful piece...thought provoking with thoughts that we all perceive but seldom crystalize.
Just one note: AI is NEVER useful unless you already know the answer to the question you are asking. The hallucinatory risk is baked into the technology and is irreducible below 10% or 15% irrespective of how many RAGs or other fillips one uses to try to remediate. This is why it never will work in actual health care applications, and why it really does not work in any application -- as the ladies on The View have recently discovered...lol. So as a supplement to checking facts you think you know but need to further explore, fine. As a question answering tool in new spaces -- far too risky.
But that is just a nit -- the piece hits home. I appreciate more every day how much I learned "doing nothing" all day (until our mother's bellowed across the neighborhood "dinner!" and we took our bikes and went home). Things cannot have become so horrible that we can not return to that place. We need to.
Thanks for this thoughtful response and for adding technical context about AI's limitations. Your point about the hallucinatory risk being 'baked in' is particularly important - it helps explain why my friend's advice about only using AI for things we already know the answers to is so crucial.
The image of mothers calling kids home for dinner particularly resonates. It's interesting - many of my closest friendships were forged during those 'doing nothing' days, just exploring and discovering together. While I've made some good friends over the years since, I've noticed a lot of the more recent connections were what you might call 'fiat friendships' - based more on professional networks or shared interests rather than that raw, authentic experience of human connection and learning together. That difference has become even clearer to me over the madness of the last few years.
And you're right - we have to believe we can find our way back to that kind of authentic experience. The alternative is accepting a world where both learning and human connection become increasingly artificial.
I graduated from college at an especially weird time-- 1992-- during a recession (and the grunge music reflecting it) and prior to the internet age. Due to a lack of job options I went straight to grad school for my MLIS. UT Austin was the first program to teach a class on the internet, and I had zero vision when it came to predicting how transformative it would be (https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/the-future-is-now). In '95-'96 I was in the Peace Corps and returned home to an entirely different world.
On another note, before I read your piece this morning I was reflecting on how much my outlook has changed since 2020. Up to that point I could still be pretty obsessive when it came to various genres of music, art, film, and literature, but now I question everything that absorbed me before and even whether in totality I was distracted by all the wrong things. It's not just a case of growing out of those interests, but more a case of becoming aware that the world is not as it seemed to me then. Still grappling with this disorientation.
Thanks for sharing this. That '92-'96 window you describe was such a pivotal moment - just as the web was hitting the scene, right between worlds. Your library science background gives you a unique perspective on how information discovery and curation have transformed. Your Peace Corps experience must have made the contrast even starker, leaving and returning to find everything transformed.
Your reflection about questioning pre-2020 obsessions really resonates. Learning about Tavistock and cultural engineering has completely transformed how I view everything I once took at face value. I still love music, books, and film, but I've learned to separate my appreciation for the art from my understanding of how it was being used. These days I find myself watching movies to decode them (haha) rather than just absorb them. The art itself can still be beautiful and meaningful while recognizing it was often part of a larger program of social engineering. At this stage, I'm less concerned about how these cultural forces shaped me - I'm pretty fully baked at this point. I'm more curious/concerned about how they're impacting my kids and their generation.
Having read your piece on 4th IR technologies, I appreciate your critical examination of where this is all heading. Blockchain illustrates the stakes perfectly - decentralization isn't just potential, it's essential for human freedom, yet the same technology could be weaponized into the ultimate tool of control. As with most tools, it comes down to who's wielding the hammer.
That disorientation you describe is exactly right - it's like having to reprocess everything you thought you knew. Not always comfortable, but necessary for seeing things more clearly. Thanks again for sharing.
Enjoyed another article. I still have a few complete sets of baseball cards from the early 1970’s, such fun!
On another note, I have been mildly entertaining myself by exploring what Grok will accept as truth, thus identifying its biases. I call it “all knowing Grok”
Excellent post. I grew up on a small family ranch in Montana. A strong sense of curiosity is embedded in my brain. Some days almost too much as we learn hands on work, reading, listening, seeing the world around us. Had a high school math teacher who challenged us hard to learn and understand using problems of the week ala Parade Magazine's Marilyn vos Savant's brainteasers. No baseball or other sports. BS Engineering Physics, MBA Operations Research, PhD Industrial Engineering. Forty years in manufacturing technical, environmental, and quality assurance work. Excited about the Internet. Started a technical literature search service in 1968 which the company continued for 25 years. Now retired and still curious. Critical thinking comes naturally in response to any author. Still don't think we have accustomed ourselves to TV, much less Social Media, and now AI. Still an optimist believing human wisdom will see us through.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for sharing this, Bill. Your Montana ranch experience perfectly illustrates how real learning happens through direct engagement with the world. I love how you describe curiosity as being 'embedded in your brain' through hands-on work. I share your optimism about human wisdom, though I think we'll have to fight to preserve spaces for it. The kind of critical thinking that comes naturally from real-world problem solving is exactly what we need to maintain as these technologies advance.
"Yes, information became abundant, but wisdom became scarce."
I did not have that kind of childhood with a lot of free space to roam, learn, and feel. I happened to be a glued-to-the-desk nerd who likes reading, since early childhood. I have collected a lot of diverse knowledge from books, but I have very little hands-on experience. My fingers are all thumbs, anyway. Actually, all my fingers are toes, really. One thing I did learn to appreciate is the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom. And I was blessed with mostly good teachers, one outstanding, before entering college. It seems wisdom is more and more difficult to find these days. And trying to find wisdom from national leaders appears to be next to impossible.
Josh, Excellent, insightful piece...thought provoking with thoughts that we all perceive but seldom crystalize.
Just one note: AI is NEVER useful unless you already know the answer to the question you are asking. The hallucinatory risk is baked into the technology and is irreducible below 10% or 15% irrespective of how many RAGs or other fillips one uses to try to remediate. This is why it never will work in actual health care applications, and why it really does not work in any application -- as the ladies on The View have recently discovered...lol. So as a supplement to checking facts you think you know but need to further explore, fine. As a question answering tool in new spaces -- far too risky.
But that is just a nit -- the piece hits home. I appreciate more every day how much I learned "doing nothing" all day (until our mother's bellowed across the neighborhood "dinner!" and we took our bikes and went home). Things cannot have become so horrible that we can not return to that place. We need to.
Thanks for this thoughtful response and for adding technical context about AI's limitations. Your point about the hallucinatory risk being 'baked in' is particularly important - it helps explain why my friend's advice about only using AI for things we already know the answers to is so crucial.
The image of mothers calling kids home for dinner particularly resonates. It's interesting - many of my closest friendships were forged during those 'doing nothing' days, just exploring and discovering together. While I've made some good friends over the years since, I've noticed a lot of the more recent connections were what you might call 'fiat friendships' - based more on professional networks or shared interests rather than that raw, authentic experience of human connection and learning together. That difference has become even clearer to me over the madness of the last few years.
And you're right - we have to believe we can find our way back to that kind of authentic experience. The alternative is accepting a world where both learning and human connection become increasingly artificial.
I graduated from college at an especially weird time-- 1992-- during a recession (and the grunge music reflecting it) and prior to the internet age. Due to a lack of job options I went straight to grad school for my MLIS. UT Austin was the first program to teach a class on the internet, and I had zero vision when it came to predicting how transformative it would be (https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/the-future-is-now). In '95-'96 I was in the Peace Corps and returned home to an entirely different world.
On another note, before I read your piece this morning I was reflecting on how much my outlook has changed since 2020. Up to that point I could still be pretty obsessive when it came to various genres of music, art, film, and literature, but now I question everything that absorbed me before and even whether in totality I was distracted by all the wrong things. It's not just a case of growing out of those interests, but more a case of becoming aware that the world is not as it seemed to me then. Still grappling with this disorientation.
Thanks for sharing this. That '92-'96 window you describe was such a pivotal moment - just as the web was hitting the scene, right between worlds. Your library science background gives you a unique perspective on how information discovery and curation have transformed. Your Peace Corps experience must have made the contrast even starker, leaving and returning to find everything transformed.
Your reflection about questioning pre-2020 obsessions really resonates. Learning about Tavistock and cultural engineering has completely transformed how I view everything I once took at face value. I still love music, books, and film, but I've learned to separate my appreciation for the art from my understanding of how it was being used. These days I find myself watching movies to decode them (haha) rather than just absorb them. The art itself can still be beautiful and meaningful while recognizing it was often part of a larger program of social engineering. At this stage, I'm less concerned about how these cultural forces shaped me - I'm pretty fully baked at this point. I'm more curious/concerned about how they're impacting my kids and their generation.
Having read your piece on 4th IR technologies, I appreciate your critical examination of where this is all heading. Blockchain illustrates the stakes perfectly - decentralization isn't just potential, it's essential for human freedom, yet the same technology could be weaponized into the ultimate tool of control. As with most tools, it comes down to who's wielding the hammer.
That disorientation you describe is exactly right - it's like having to reprocess everything you thought you knew. Not always comfortable, but necessary for seeing things more clearly. Thanks again for sharing.