This month the seasons are changing. Cold winds are blowing the leaves off the trees. Change is a hallmark of technology too but does it have to be? This month I’m reflecting on what influences impact that change and where does this whole generative AI wave take us…
Seasons - The Cliff Notes to a Forest Year https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/a-forest-year
Like me, Microsoft Word Turned 40 this year. https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-word-turns-40
Speaking of word processors, Jose M. Gilgado reflects on the beauty of finished software. https://josem.co/the-beauty-of-finished-software/
The piece above made me reflect on an iTunes / iPod feature that I loved but is no longer vogue now that Apple removed almost all skeuomorphic elements from its UI: The History of Cover Flow
Speaking of obsoletism: Original Apple Watch is Now Obsolete, Including $17,000 Gold Model
How ancient is the hammer? When it comes to enduring usefulness, it could very well be humanity's longest-standing tool… The “social” internet? That lasted what 20 years? At most? Sunil Om writes… “the internet, as we have known it, has evolved from a quaint, quirky place to a social utopia, and then to an algorithmic reality. In this reality, the primary task of these platforms is not about idealism or even entertainment — it is about extracting as much revenue as possible from human vanity, avarice, and narcissism”
This impermanence of software has me thinking about generative AI tools. The certainty of evolution in the current generation of AI tools is implicitly baked into all interactions with the models - this does this now but will do something different later. Our mindset impacts how we interact with it. I found myself pondering what are the ‘forever’ tools of this generative AI wave after reading Benedict Evans article. He write “it’s a general purpose technology, there’s a command line, and some stuff that’s theoretically magic, and a few things that are extremely useful to a few people, but we don’t yet have the richness of all the software that came on top”
“I’ve certainly noticed that the technology works best when I use it to extend my imagination rather than my image generation.” Ian Bogost reflects on generative AI as a tool for the imagination
David Friedman, begrudgingly, is not yet sick of ChatGPT and reflects on the usefulness of chatGPT to “make order from chaos” (…making sense of doctor recommendations).
Transformers, tokens, large language models… all big concepts that are hard to explain. This Guardian article does a good job of helping visualize how tools like chatGPT work. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2023/nov/01/how-ai-chatbots-like-chatgpt-or-bard-work-visual-explainer
From the article Six Grave Doubts About Computers by Jerry Mander, illustration by R. Crumb