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Template:M intro technology rumours of our demise: Difference between revisions
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, 19 November 2023→On being a machine
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We call it that because machines have proven consistently good at doing things humans are too weak, slow, inconstant or easily bored to do well: ''mechanical'' things. | We call it that because machines have proven consistently good at doing things humans are too weak, slow, inconstant or easily bored to do well: ''mechanical'' things. | ||
But state-of-the-art machines, per Arthur C. Clarke, aren’t magic: it just ''seems'' like it, sometimes. They are a two-dimensional, simplified model of human intelligence. A proxy: a modernist [[simulacrum]]. They are a shorthand way of mimicking a limited sort of sentience, potentially useful in known environments and constrained circumstances. | |||
Yet we have | Yet we have begun to model ourselves upon machines. The most dystopian part of John Cryan’s opening quote was the first part — “''today, we have people behaving like robots''” — because it accurately describes a distressing present reality. We have persuaded ourselves that ’’being machine-like’’ should be our loftiest aim. But if we are in a footrace where what matters is strength, speed, consistency, modularity, [[fungibility]] and ''mundanity'' — humans will surely lose. | ||
But executing | But executing tasks with strength, speed, consistency, fungibility and patience is a lofty aim ''only if you haven’t got a suitable machine''. | ||
If you ''have'' got a machine, ''use it'': let your people do something more useful. | If you ''have'' got a machine, ''use it'': let your people do something more useful. | ||