Oh, Oh, a Technological Insight: Unstable, Degrading, Non-Reversable.
April 9, 2025
Dinobaby says, “No smart software involved. That’s for “real” journalists and pundits.
“Building a House of Cards” has a subtitle which echoes other statements of “Oh, oh, this is not good”:
Beneath the glossy promises of artificial intelligence lies a ticking time bomb — and it’s not the one you’re expecting
Yep, another, person who seems younger than I has realized that flows of digital information erode, not just social structures but other functions as well.
The author, who publishes in Mr. Plan B, states:
The real crisis isn’t Skynet-style robot overlords. It’s the quiet, systematic automation of human bias at scale.
The observation is excellent. The bias of engineers and coders who set thresholds, orchestrate algorithmic beavers, and use available data. The human bias is woven into the systems people use, believe, and depend upon.
The essay asserts:
We’re not coding intelligence — we’re fossilizing prejudice.
That, in my opinion, is a good line.
The author, however, runs into a bit of a problem. The idea of a developers’ manifesto is interesting but flawed. Most devs, as some term this group, like creating stuff and solving problems. That’s the kick. Most of the devs with whom I have worked laugh when I tell them I majored in medieval religious poetry. One, a friend of mine, said, “I paid someone to write my freshman essay, and I never took any classes other than math and science.”
I like that: Ignorance and a good laugh at how I spent my college years. The one saving grace is that I got paid to help a professor index Latin sermons using the university’s one computer to output the word lists and microfilm locators. Hey, in 1962, this was voodoo.
Those who craft the systems are not compensated to think about whether Latin sermons were original or just passed around when a visiting monk exchanged some fair copies for a snort of monastery wine and a bit of roast pig. Let me tell you that most of those sermons were tediously similar and raised such thorny problems as the originality of the “author.”
The essay concludes with a factoid:
25 years in tech taught me one thing: Every “revolutionary” technology eventually faces its reckoning. AI’s is coming.
I am not sure that those engaged in the noble art and craft of engineering “smart” software accept, relate, or care about the validity of the author’s statement.
The good news is that the essay’s author now understand that flows of digital information do not construct. The bits zipping around erode just like the glass beads or corn cob abrasive in a body shop’s media blaster aimed at rusted automobile frame.
The body shop “restores” the rusted part until it is as good as new. Even better some mechanics say.
As long as it is “good enough,” the customer is happy. But those in the know realize that the frame will someday be unable to support the stress placed upon it.
See. Philosophy from a mechanical process. But the meaning speaks to a car nut. One may have to give up or start over.
Stephen E Arnold, April 9, 2025
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