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A World Without Work: Difference between revisions
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By design, computers can only follow rules. One which could not be relied on to process instructions with absolute fidelity would be a ''bad'' computer. ''Good'' computers cannot think, they cannot imagine, they cannot handle ambiguity — if they even have a “mental life”, it exists in a flat space with no future or past. Computer language, by design, has no ''tense''. It is not a ''symbolic'' structure, in that its vocabulary does not represent anything.<ref>See: [[Code and language - technology article|Code and language]].</ref> Machines are linguistically, structurally ''incapable'' of interpreting, let alone ''coining'' [[metaphor|metaphors]], and they cannot reason by analogy or manage any of the innate ambiguities that comprise human decision-making. | By design, computers can only follow rules. One which could not be relied on to process instructions with absolute fidelity would be a ''bad'' computer. ''Good'' computers cannot think, they cannot imagine, they cannot handle ambiguity — if they even have a “mental life”, it exists in a flat space with no future or past. Computer language, by design, has no ''tense''. It is not a ''symbolic'' structure, in that its vocabulary does not represent anything.<ref>See: [[Code and language - technology article|Code and language]].</ref> Machines are linguistically, structurally ''incapable'' of interpreting, let alone ''coining'' [[metaphor|metaphors]], and they cannot reason by analogy or manage any of the innate ambiguities that comprise human decision-making. | ||
Until they can do these things, they can only aid — in most circumstances, ''complicate'' — the already over-complicated networks we all inhabit. | Until they can do these things, they can only aid — in most circumstances, ''complicate'' — the already over-complicated networks we all inhabit. | ||
And even this is before considering the purblind, irrational sociology that propels all organisations, because it propels all ''individuals'' in those organisations. Like the academy in which {{author|Daniel Susskind}}’s millenarianism thrives, computers function best in a theoretical, [[Platonic form|Platonic]] universe governed by unchanging and unambiguous physical rules, and populated by rational agents. In that world, Susskind ''might'' have a point — though I doubt it. | |||
But in the conflicted, dirty, unpredictable universe we find ourselves in out here in TV land, there will continue to be plenty of work, as there always has been, administrating, governing, auditing, advising, [[rent-seeking]] — not to mention speculating and bullshitting about the former — as long as the computer-enhanced tight-coupled complexity of our networks doesn't [[Lentil convexity|wipe us out first]]. | But in the conflicted, dirty, unpredictable universe we find ourselves in out here in TV land, there will continue to be plenty of work, as there always has been, administrating, governing, auditing, advising, [[rent-seeking]] — not to mention speculating and bullshitting about the former — as long as the computer-enhanced tight-coupled complexity of our networks doesn't [[Lentil convexity|wipe us out first]]. | ||