A poetic vapidity coined by me in the early days, the ontogenous of our post-LLM world.
Simply, when all words are possible, when ideas can be synthesized by the slightest glimmer of a concept – what is left.
Perhaps a more apt reflection is “The Death of Thought”.
And here we start to find some truth.
To ask the artificial mind for feedback frequently shortcircuits a necessary criticality – but it is an engagement.
However, often we don’t even ask that, we state a problem and are offered a solution.
We are bequeathed a managerial ownership of the creative process, but product management, and product ownership come with a responsibility. As a user, are we owning that responsibility?
I’m at an age, and established enough that I do not have misaligned tasks saddled upon me – misaligned in the sense that I feel no personal connection to their completion – but when I did, I would not own the expectation demanded of supervisory authority – I would simply accept with the least friction and effort, the ideas that come to me.
So there is the first knife in the heart of thinking – why bother, when a product is readily available.
When thought is valueless labour (as all value is relative) – why not take the easy product?
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The second knife is thrust deeper, it requires an active defense.
If AI is “best at the things I’m not” – that is to say, it appears the strongest when I have no domain knowledge to contextualize the output – how are we to stand against that superficial and convincing authority?
To discuss with AI a subject well understood, is to engage in a constant pattern of corrections, tangents, pedagogical maneuvers and shiftings. For myself, it is to leave unsatisfied.
Chatbot interactions are almost entirely unsatisfactory when I possess strong domain knowledge, and revelatory when I know nothing.
So, how are we to learn to think, when the thinking is served, tidy and listicled?
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The third knife is the one that has been there all along.
It is the knife of social allegiance, culture, norms and habits.
A rusted blade that has always served to dull our thought process – whether through the avoidance of effort, or the cultural habits we have adopted – all of these make us intrinsically less likely to engage, challenge, and consider alternatives deeply.
But why mention it as a knife of the new age, if it is one that has always been there?
It’s the recentering that is now taking place.
We have usually lived in a world of controlled media and dissemination, since the Gutenberg press, there was an official narrative.
The internet was likely the biggest threat to this, allowing for the expansive thread of ideas, diverse, explosive, and often converging around tribal idiocies, fantasies and allegiances.
With the creation of the transcendental voice – the voice owned by a small few billionaires – and with a reach to every person on earth – what normalizing habits does it have?
What conversations are no longer happening. Stacks no longer overflow, instead conversations happen in private, communities aren’t made, and ideas are challenged in isolated chambers.
Discussions that should have happened in public – with peers, happen in private and internal validations become resolute.
Why listen and be humble to the thoughts of others when you’ve already been told that you’re right – you’ve massaged the sparring partner into a gloating sidekick – a testament to your brilliance.
The third knife builds conviction in our own wonder by muting conversation and discussion. We’ve already been proven right by that manifest authority – justified in numbers with bold headings and point, counter-points.
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There is the thought that we own, as well as the thoughts we share – our cognitive community.
To turn that private, into a confessional with the rich, powerful, singular – that indexes and categorizes all – what does that make of our human community?
Ethan Mollick talks of centaurs and cyborgs – half man, half machine – these new ubermench islands that deny community for reverie in their ownselves.
An indulgence in one’s own effluence.
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Last, there is the loss of failure and challenge. The seppuku blade we impale ourselves upon in vain of our own self-flattery.
To toss an idea to the wind – only to have it whiplash and splatter across your own face – that is where the learning happens.
When, as in this piece, things feel misguided, unsatisfactory and wrong – what does that mean and what does that become?
What is learning when everything can be corrected instantly and refurbished by the artificial scribe?
For tomorrow, that last knife – The Post-Failure world.