Great read. You've probably read it already, but if not, I'd highly recommend "Reader, Come Home", by Maryanne Wolf (https://www.maryannewolf.com/reader-come-home). I found myself thinking, "Crap, I've noticed that happening to me, too" a frightening number of times while reading it.
I thought the NYT article on Ellison was quite good. I think I'm with Cory Doctorow: The sooner the bubble pops, the less damage it'll do to the economy.
I remember DE approaching me asking for recommendation to learn data modelling. I listed them some books for which they replied - "yeah but that's more than 400 pages and it's for sure outdated now. do you have something simpler and faster?"
I already work with DEs for whom "code review" is asking AI to do the review and copy/pasting results back.
Now we can complain about all of these but important question remains - what to do with this? I, similarly to you, don't have the answer.
This post-literate approach seems completely broken for me. I wonder if world around will verify it and correct over time. OR... if it will adapt, build workarounds and normalize it.
Time will show.
btw, this lady with the book on gym is such a telling example... book as a symbol / appearance. Not as a source for knowledge.
I find the question of how our culture has changed - or will continue to change - regarding reading really interesting. Maybe things will return to normal in the future when we understand how to use AI meaningful. I've also always been a bookworm, but I have to admit, I am currently very, very exhausted, and honestly, it’s no wonder.
Over the last 9 months, I’ve been diving deep into AI, and I’ve learned more than in the last 9 years combined. But it was just too much input. Too much information from the AI itself, too many posts, articles, and opinions, some of which I now realize weren't even worth reading, but you force yourself through them at the beginning because you just want to understand what AI is. My head is practically exploding and I really need a break.
My wish for the future is that we use AI in a way that there will be things we don't even have to read anymore! I'm currently booking a vacation, and I can think of a ton of examples where a smart use of AI would massively simplify the booking process for me. That way, I’d have to read less unnessecary things and could read high-quality books instead. So, I really hope we manage to implement AI in a way so that we don't have to read things that AI can easily handle and leaving us with more time and leisure to read beautiful things.
I think also it requires a shift in mindset when it comes to writing and content production. Everyone is producing so much content out of pure panic that they won't be noticed anymore if they stop. It’s completely understandable! But it doesn't achieve the desired goal.
As for reading social media: I think we do it because we want to feel a sense of belonging and are looking for connection. It's highly addictive, in my opinion.
And regarding engineering without reading: I absolutely agree with you that 'writing and reading' is moving up to the architectural level.
>Engineering is going post-literate, but can’t go post-responsibility/accountability.
Isn't this the reason to be optimistic about the increasing reliance on AI? As long as the incentive structure remains the same (building performant, reliable systems), engineers will calibrate their usage of AI towards this outcome, and more reckless usage will be punished/weeded out. Obviously there have been many bumps along the way.
Great read. You've probably read it already, but if not, I'd highly recommend "Reader, Come Home", by Maryanne Wolf (https://www.maryannewolf.com/reader-come-home). I found myself thinking, "Crap, I've noticed that happening to me, too" a frightening number of times while reading it.
I thought the NYT article on Ellison was quite good. I think I'm with Cory Doctorow: The sooner the bubble pops, the less damage it'll do to the economy.
I remember DE approaching me asking for recommendation to learn data modelling. I listed them some books for which they replied - "yeah but that's more than 400 pages and it's for sure outdated now. do you have something simpler and faster?"
I already work with DEs for whom "code review" is asking AI to do the review and copy/pasting results back.
Now we can complain about all of these but important question remains - what to do with this? I, similarly to you, don't have the answer.
This post-literate approach seems completely broken for me. I wonder if world around will verify it and correct over time. OR... if it will adapt, build workarounds and normalize it.
Time will show.
btw, this lady with the book on gym is such a telling example... book as a symbol / appearance. Not as a source for knowledge.
I find the question of how our culture has changed - or will continue to change - regarding reading really interesting. Maybe things will return to normal in the future when we understand how to use AI meaningful. I've also always been a bookworm, but I have to admit, I am currently very, very exhausted, and honestly, it’s no wonder.
Over the last 9 months, I’ve been diving deep into AI, and I’ve learned more than in the last 9 years combined. But it was just too much input. Too much information from the AI itself, too many posts, articles, and opinions, some of which I now realize weren't even worth reading, but you force yourself through them at the beginning because you just want to understand what AI is. My head is practically exploding and I really need a break.
My wish for the future is that we use AI in a way that there will be things we don't even have to read anymore! I'm currently booking a vacation, and I can think of a ton of examples where a smart use of AI would massively simplify the booking process for me. That way, I’d have to read less unnessecary things and could read high-quality books instead. So, I really hope we manage to implement AI in a way so that we don't have to read things that AI can easily handle and leaving us with more time and leisure to read beautiful things.
I think also it requires a shift in mindset when it comes to writing and content production. Everyone is producing so much content out of pure panic that they won't be noticed anymore if they stop. It’s completely understandable! But it doesn't achieve the desired goal.
As for reading social media: I think we do it because we want to feel a sense of belonging and are looking for connection. It's highly addictive, in my opinion.
And regarding engineering without reading: I absolutely agree with you that 'writing and reading' is moving up to the architectural level.
I don’t think we’re going back to whatever we thought “normal” was
>Engineering is going post-literate, but can’t go post-responsibility/accountability.
Isn't this the reason to be optimistic about the increasing reliance on AI? As long as the incentive structure remains the same (building performant, reliable systems), engineers will calibrate their usage of AI towards this outcome, and more reckless usage will be punished/weeded out. Obviously there have been many bumps along the way.
Perhaps. I sense it’s still very early days and it’s very much FAFO. But who knows