“It’s easy to surrender our agency to these tools when they make life easier…once you surrender enough you forget you had agency in the first place.” EXACTLY.
"It’s easy to surrender our agency to these tools when they make life easier. As I learned with Google Maps, though, once you surrender enough you forget you had agency in the first place. The easy choice becomes the default choice, and you lose sight of what you actually wanted—until the day you wake up and forget who you were." This had me like, woah. Thank you
Is it definitely the case that he wasn't waking up as the sun was going down, having slept through the day? I feel like the sun gets whiter / less colored as it rises in the morning. Plus you'd be more likely to feel disoriented if you woke up at sunset. (I haven't read the book ... just wondering about the imagery)
Great article! Been feeling very critical of digital convenience recently, even though the last decade of my life I was so bullish on it (so much so that I built my career around the „there is an app for that“ ideology, namely as a product designer). You explain it well why it can be a trap sometimes. I hope for us all to rediscover the beauty of being a flâneur (who doesn‘t care about the most efficient route), the beauty of having to remember something or look it up in some „archaic“ way or improvise without that knowledge, the beauty of bricolage (making do with what’s at hand) instead of instant generation…
So true!! I remember i spent half an hour lying in bed one day trying to come up with designs to paint on my closet door. I didn't document them, just moved shapes around in my head when i should have been going to sleep. I could've easily looked up inspo on Pinterest but i wouldn't have remembered that because social media has such a strange hypnotic infinite present... So much of the content is so quick and mindless it becomes forgettable
I think of the loss of agency a lot - I first encountered it when my parents used their satnav for the first time in an area they knew like the back of their hands and gave over their trust entirely to the technology that led us some unlikely back roads... we got there, but it was unnecessary. In time, we tend to forget we knew how to get from A to B relying on our knowledge of place and sense of orientation. I daily encounter it with my work in translation where lots of people think google translate and similar are the gold standard when in fact they lead to an impoverishment of language and overall options in the long run. Where a dictionary, even an online one, gives you so many options that can serve as a springboard for your own thoughts, technology can at best be helpful to get the gist of a phrase.
I definitely agree with your overall thought, and these conveniences have for sure made us take some parts of life for granted, though I can’t for the life of me go anywhere without my GPS. I do wonder what ChatGPT could do with more context. I’ve a feeling the quote from On the Road works best because of what came before it, though I’ve never read the book so I can’t say for sure.
I was thinking exactly about this a few days ago. I was checking out Komoot to plan a biking route and realised what am I missing out by using google maps which is optimised for one single purpose of finding the optimal path. Yes, sometimes it offers best route without traffic, fastest route, route with least hills, but never the scenic route option. I wish I had something like this.
Question, why did you make your title entirely lower case? I assume it was intentional to some degree, considering you’re a linguist and think about those kind of things more then most people…
I think I read somewhere that neuro- & AI scientists have a common goal at the moment: trying to understand how imagination works
Sounds paradoxical to design a _machine_ to do unpredictable things - stands in almost complete opposition to the deterministic roots of computer science - but could yield very interesting new thinking on creativity, the origin of prose, meta-fiction
i agree that it does have its uses, and i know you don’t use it to generate your actual work (i should’ve been more specific, my bad) - i was mostly referring to its environmental impact.
> ChatGPT uses 3 Wh [for a single prompt]. This is enough energy to:
> Leave a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes.
> Leave a wireless router on for 30 minutes.
> Play a gaming console for 1 minute.
> Run a vacuum cleaner for 10 seconds.
> Run a microwave for 10 seconds
> Run a toaster for 8 seconds
> Brew coffee for 10 seconds
> Use a laptop for 3 minutes. ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than it takes you to read it.
There are many great reasons to be concerned about ChatGPT and the future of AI in society—in my opinion, environmental impact is just not one of them.
“It’s easy to surrender our agency to these tools when they make life easier…once you surrender enough you forget you had agency in the first place.” EXACTLY.
It’s nice to have moments where the absorption in efficiency, especially with technology, wears off !
"It’s easy to surrender our agency to these tools when they make life easier. As I learned with Google Maps, though, once you surrender enough you forget you had agency in the first place. The easy choice becomes the default choice, and you lose sight of what you actually wanted—until the day you wake up and forget who you were." This had me like, woah. Thank you
Is it definitely the case that he wasn't waking up as the sun was going down, having slept through the day? I feel like the sun gets whiter / less colored as it rises in the morning. Plus you'd be more likely to feel disoriented if you woke up at sunset. (I haven't read the book ... just wondering about the imagery)
Yeah that's what i thought too, like in a concert style mobile home
Great article! Been feeling very critical of digital convenience recently, even though the last decade of my life I was so bullish on it (so much so that I built my career around the „there is an app for that“ ideology, namely as a product designer). You explain it well why it can be a trap sometimes. I hope for us all to rediscover the beauty of being a flâneur (who doesn‘t care about the most efficient route), the beauty of having to remember something or look it up in some „archaic“ way or improvise without that knowledge, the beauty of bricolage (making do with what’s at hand) instead of instant generation…
So true!! I remember i spent half an hour lying in bed one day trying to come up with designs to paint on my closet door. I didn't document them, just moved shapes around in my head when i should have been going to sleep. I could've easily looked up inspo on Pinterest but i wouldn't have remembered that because social media has such a strange hypnotic infinite present... So much of the content is so quick and mindless it becomes forgettable
Also tsym for including the word definitions!! <3
I think of the loss of agency a lot - I first encountered it when my parents used their satnav for the first time in an area they knew like the back of their hands and gave over their trust entirely to the technology that led us some unlikely back roads... we got there, but it was unnecessary. In time, we tend to forget we knew how to get from A to B relying on our knowledge of place and sense of orientation. I daily encounter it with my work in translation where lots of people think google translate and similar are the gold standard when in fact they lead to an impoverishment of language and overall options in the long run. Where a dictionary, even an online one, gives you so many options that can serve as a springboard for your own thoughts, technology can at best be helpful to get the gist of a phrase.
I definitely agree with your overall thought, and these conveniences have for sure made us take some parts of life for granted, though I can’t for the life of me go anywhere without my GPS. I do wonder what ChatGPT could do with more context. I’ve a feeling the quote from On the Road works best because of what came before it, though I’ve never read the book so I can’t say for sure.
I was thinking exactly about this a few days ago. I was checking out Komoot to plan a biking route and realised what am I missing out by using google maps which is optimised for one single purpose of finding the optimal path. Yes, sometimes it offers best route without traffic, fastest route, route with least hills, but never the scenic route option. I wish I had something like this.
Question, why did you make your title entirely lower case? I assume it was intentional to some degree, considering you’re a linguist and think about those kind of things more then most people…
Hey i js checked many other posts of his have the title in lower ase too, might js be a habit
If you did come up w a metaphor I'd love to hear though!! <3
I think I read somewhere that neuro- & AI scientists have a common goal at the moment: trying to understand how imagination works
Sounds paradoxical to design a _machine_ to do unpredictable things - stands in almost complete opposition to the deterministic roots of computer science - but could yield very interesting new thinking on creativity, the origin of prose, meta-fiction
dude, you use chatgpt? :/
As a final check on my completed product, yes. I don't have an editor and this is the best way to proof-read my writing.
For idea generation and actual writing, no.
I think I explain the difference pretty well. All tools have useful applications, they just require awareness of when to actually apply them.
i agree that it does have its uses, and i know you don’t use it to generate your actual work (i should’ve been more specific, my bad) - i was mostly referring to its environmental impact.
Andy Masley wrote a great post about how ChatGPT is not really that bad for the environment (https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about). Some stats:
> ChatGPT uses 3 Wh [for a single prompt]. This is enough energy to:
> Leave a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes.
> Leave a wireless router on for 30 minutes.
> Play a gaming console for 1 minute.
> Run a vacuum cleaner for 10 seconds.
> Run a microwave for 10 seconds
> Run a toaster for 8 seconds
> Brew coffee for 10 seconds
> Use a laptop for 3 minutes. ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than it takes you to read it.
There are many great reasons to be concerned about ChatGPT and the future of AI in society—in my opinion, environmental impact is just not one of them.
Was this written by ChatGPT (or some other programme?).
no, I wrote it