I always think about a scene from a Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan. There is a scene when Spock and Kirk are talking about how to take over another ship remotely. They are using a little known function.
At this point Kirk says to one of the young officers, “You have know ow stuff works on a Starship.”
I used to play that scene in training for new supervisors everywhere I worked. People need to know how their systems work. AI, Robots, and computers can do a lot of the legwork, but if you don’t know—at least in basic terms—how a car works, how your electricity works, how your heating system works, how your bank processes payments—when it breaks you are at the mercy of someone who does.
When my kids faced “problems” I would drive them crazy asking them to map out the issue and try to understand the problem. The exercise was frustrating, but it taught them how to think.
Problem solving skills, cause and effect, and an ability to think “objectively” are lost on a lot of people these days because, “the computer told me so.”
Read like AI generated text. AI isn’t the servant. We are becoming the servants of some amorphous, ubiquitous, partial knowledge conglomerate, whom most people with no life experience are willing to trust.
I think one solution is to have two identities. One is compliant to the internet morass. It is a fake identity. Consistent with internet expectations.
The second lives free from the societal internet boundaries. It’s relationships are in person and and actually effect real physical entities. It grows food, fixes things, writes, sings, cooks, talks in person. Explores the physical world. Shares experiences with in person friends.
This is obviously written by AI.
I appreciate that you acknowledged that.
AI can be useful. But it can suck too. Especially when someone uses it to write an article for them.
Bkmk
If the internet goes down, very few can reconnect or restore critical infrastructure. In short, people are dependent on complex systems they neither control nor can fix.
In defense of people, the number of technologies necessary to master in order to fix anything is beyond human capability. I have done welding, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, logging, running heavy equipment, sheet metal, car painting, mechanical work, prototype machining, made simple logic circuits, built a computer, lots of digital photography... but you know I don't do all of them every day; I have to relearn most of those skills when I take them on. Yet worse than that, even with all those skills there is a lot I cannot fix. I sure as hell don't know how to fix a smart phone.
Skills are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, no doubt. But more important, the knowledge that goes into a product is so huge that NO ONE can master them all. Consider finite element analysis and CAM. For example, look at a DJI drone. That degree of integration is a result of multiple product generations by a team of experts familiar with the manufacturing 'skills' of injection molding, heat transfer, power transmission, tiny motors, and automated assembly. In a sense, the building of drones drove the design technology.
This cuts to one of the most damaging consequences of outsourcing manufacturing. The idiots looking to cash in on cheaper labor thought we could retain the demanding technical skills while shucking the touch labor. That cost us the immediate feedbacks of materials handling, plating, molding, and assembly doesn't get back to the designers. Shipping production overseas made design less capable. THIS is where the environmental regulations governing the externalities of plating, water and air quality, noise... crushed the learning process everything from building nanometer factories to making ships to defend ourselves.
Thank you for your opinion about Elvis Presley.
We think it is spectacular, just like you.
Sincerely yours,
This stimulating response generated by Bozo-AI
(on a more serious note... after about 10 plumber opinions we are now trying an AI-generated repair suggestion ....which none of the plumbers thought of... and which looks like maybe it might work ....... will try to update in a few days...smiles smiles ....there ARE some occasions when AI can maybe be helpful....hope hope hoping this will prove to be one of them...smiles)
The condensed version...
Both Mental and Physical Atrophy are a biological reality... Use them or lose them...
Prime for takeover.
I’m just waiting for the right moment to become Emperor of the Observable Universe.
I don’t know what you are worried about. The majority of people are already stupid. Fully half of all people are below average intelligence. Most of them are Democrats and some of the smarter half are Democrats. Billions of people are Muslims. If you fear that you will become a dullard perhaps get a hobby? Also I think there is some irony here what with lamenting the use of technology while using the same technology to compose the lamenting.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address
Yes, I love the new technology especially being able to play the music I want to hear and turn off lights all by voice command from my easy chair. However, I still make meals from scratch, though I will consult recipes from the Internet rather than my cookbook collection. I have done auto engine repair but on a 1928 Ford that you could still make repairs with simple hand tools. I built my own stereo systems, but back when there were tubes not integrated circuits. I learned to do basic electrical repair, plumbing and even installed ceramic tile, but in my old age no longer have the agility to do these tasks myself. If all else fails I still have my old slide rule.