An Age of Hyperabundance

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-47/essays/an-age-of-hyperabundance/

by vector_spaces • 2 years ago

74 22 2 years ago

"What really frightened me was the future of mediocrity they suggested: the inescapable screens, the app-facilitated antisocial behavior, the assumptions advanced as knowledge, and above all the collective delusion formulated in high offices and peddled to common people that all this made for an easier life."

The singularity is here, but it's actually the singularity of mediocrity. Which is ironic, because we have more technology prowess than ever.

Zaskoda• 2 years ago

"The singularity is here, but it's actually the singularity of mediocrity."

I like this line a lot.

kridsdale1• 2 years ago

GenAI is designed to give you a median output. Amazing value for people on the left of the talent curve. Annoying for those on the right. Net result is the median shift right as people stop making garbage. In the short term. But in the long term, with the entry level on ramp devalued to zero, new entrants won’t do the hard work to practice and move themselves to the right half of skill.

So it raises the floor, but actually will entrench those who are the most talented writers, programmers, artists.

BlueTemplar• 2 years ago

It's a bad line. The singularity is about a hypothetical situation where progress becomes so runaway that the future becomes impossible to predict.

Mediocrity is the opposite of this : the continuation of capitalism, but even blander than predicted by futurists.

hakfoo• 2 years ago

It's easier for the people who put it up as a shield around them.

Every person caught in a web of automated support is one less question they have to answer directly.

swagasaurus-rex• 2 years ago

Why can't we have nice things?

Is it profit motive, which pushes dark patterns and ads in our software, planned obsolescence in our hardware and incentivizes races to the bottom in every industry?

Is it an issue of control, where our governments are either hamstrung or downright dangerous with no in between?

Is it an organizational issue which causes companies to act selfishly resulting in public harm? Where even the employees of a company will act selfishly against the interests of the company?

Is it an evolutionary thing where death and suffering are just a natural fact and that our society is a very imperfect attempt to escape the cruelties of existence?

Why can't we have nice things?

DiggyJohnson2• 2 years ago

Its the fundamental question of whether the human is mostly savage and our systems are valuable at tempering our worst impulses and directing us in a reasonable direction, VERSUS humans can progress beyond their savage impulses if only we weren't encumbered by the systems and expectation anchoring us down.

So the reason we can't have nice things support the former position: that humans can't simply choose to be better. We need to change the system to direct people to better ends if we have the resources to do so. We shouldn't be surprised when a struggling startup sells user data because that's just what humans do. If we don't want this bad inevitable thing we need to modify the system elsewhere to prohibit or disincentivize.

ebcode• 2 years ago

Why can't we have nice things?

"Nice things" is a value judgement, subjective, and the question as phrased usually seems mostly rhetorical. It's always a struggle to communicate clearly.

We can, and do in fact have nice things. It's nice to be alive. It's nice to watch a beautiful sunset. It's nice to have potable drinking water. It's nice to have a computer with a keyboard and a monitor and an internet connection. And it's nice to be a part of a community.

But you have to take the good with the bad. We also have a fascistic police state. We have enormous wealth disparity and the resurgence of medieval plagues due to unsanitary living conditions on the streets of our cities. We also have microplastics in our bloodstreams. We have PFAS in our drinking water. We have Donald Trump.

I think your questions are pointing in the right direction. Profit motive. Dark patterns. Hamstrung governments. Acting selfishly.

Personally, I think we'll have a lot more nice things, and fewer bad things, when we can collectively acknowledge that the reason for microplastics and PFAS in our waters and bloodstreams is absolutely the result of the status quo. Just like addiction, the first step in getting help is admitting that you have a problem. And we most certainly need help.

It remains to be seen if we can admit that we have a problem.

kushie• 2 years ago

Bradley had read my essay “HUMAN_FALLBACK” in n+1’s Winter 2022 issue in which I described my year impersonating a chatbot for a real estate start-up.

HN seemed to like this writing (I really did)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33966059

eig• 2 years ago

This essay resonated with me, speaking about the "mediocrity" of our future relationship with computer assistants.

I loved the paragraph about feeling "scammed" though I would've called it being "faked". The AI doctor can never use the stethoscope around her neck. She is hijacking totems of professionalism to appear more comforting, without the capabilities to back them up. The fake veterinarian can suggest a diagnosis but can't actually treat anyone. The real-estate chatbot cannot try to help a domestic violence victim.

Maybe that's why I interact with AI assistants the same way I interact with psycopaths. I'm comfortable interacting with them in jobs where the law will incentivize them to behave well. But for things like teaching, or medicine, or personal matters, I prefer someone with empathy.

smnrg• 2 years ago

“It” feels more appropriate than “she” for an ethereal entity.

Besides, attributing a gender to an AI can be misleading and anthropomorphizes a non-human entity, creating unrealistic expectations from the start.

DiggyJohnson2• 2 years ago

That seems like an odd thing to point out considering that the point of GP's post surely indicates that he agrees with you.

lapcat• 2 years ago

Loneliness was a problem, but loneliness had a solution, and the solution was conversation. But don’t talk with your elders, and not with the front desk, and certainly not with the man on the corner, though he might know where the pizza is. (“Noise-canceling is great, especially if you live urban,” said the earbuds guy. “There’s a lot of world out there.”) Idle chitchat was a snag in daily living. We’d rather slip through the world as silent as a burglar, seen by no one except our devices.

Under the guise of 24/7 "connectedness", we've become more disconnected than ever from other people. AI is just the next step in this technological dystopia: you'll never have to talk to another person, indeed won't be allowed to talk to another person.

SamBam• 2 years ago

Agreed. I think that chatbots will be like a short circuit to the brain's centers that seek out socialization, making one part of the brain happy to keep up the stimulus by chatting away, while the rest of the brain shriveles into loneliness with the lack of actual human connections.

blacksmith_tb• 2 years ago

That's certainly one possible outcome, though you could argue that talking to bots is like walking on a treadmill, it seems less satisfying somehow, though you are getting some exercise clearly... (but couldn't you just go outside?)

malloryerik• 2 years ago

You might enjoy reading Iain McGilchrist.

lmaoguy• 2 years ago

Society needs to collapse.

matthewdgreen• 2 years ago

This section was pretty horrifying:

The CEO leaned an elbow on the podium. “I’ll tell you a story,” he said.

A woman wrote to VERA about her elderly dog, who was having diarrhea.

“Your dog is at the end of his life,” said VERA. “I recommend euthanasia.”

The woman was beside herself. She told VERA she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Her dog was her only companion.

VERA knew the woman’s location. She sent a list of nearby clinics that could get the job done. Still, the woman was unconvinced. Euthanasia was so expensive. She’d never be able to afford it. VERA sent another list, this time of nearby shelters. “If you relinquish your dog to a shelter, they will euthanize him at no cost,” she said.

The woman did not respond. But some days later she sent VERA a long and effusive message. She had taken VERA’s advice and euthanized her dog. She wanted to thank VERA for the support during the most difficult moment of her life.

The CEO regarded us with satisfaction for his chatbot’s work: that, through a series of escalating tactics, it had convinced a woman to end her dog’s life, though she hadn’t wanted to at all. “The point of this story is that the woman forgot she was talking to a bot,” he said. “The experience was so human.”

An Age of Hyperabundance

Related Stories