Franklin, Andreesen, Gibson, and The March of Technological Progress

Three Point Thursday | 3 Timeless Maxims

To curious minds,

Happy Three Point Thursday.

Here’s 3 quotes I’m thinking about:

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“Man is a tool-making animal.”

—Benjamin Franklin

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“You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.”

—Marc Andreesen

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“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.”

—William Gibson

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From 2001: A Space Odyssey

Imagine you’re an alien scientist observing human civilization.

Once you stopped laughing and caught your breath—whatever you breathe—you would become curious. You would wonder how the humans became rulers of this silly planet. You would ask “other than love and reproduction, what’s the main function of these idiotic intellectual apes?”

And your conclusion would be creativity.

They rose to the top of the food chain because they’re programmed to make stuff, then make the stuff that they made better. Ad infinitum. This has helped them work together in bigger groups and take charge of the other animals. And over time, the compounding of new discoveries and inventions makes each generation more prosperous than the previous one.

But it’s been a double edged sword—many of their technologies have enabled them to inflict horrors on each other, the other animals, and the Earth itself that were not possible before. This is why in every era some groups of humans, with some reason, passionately call for a stoppage to certain forms of technological progress.

But you and your alien colleagues know that these calls are doomed to fail. You clearly see that nothing can stop their creative drive. It’s innate to these organisms—nothing will stop them from making new technology.

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A common sentiment I hear when talking to people about recent breakthroughs in AI is “I don’t like it.” And nothing else. Ok. That can’t be your only position. Sure you can have that opinion. But if you close your eyes and ignore all things AI because you don’t like it, you’re doing yourself a tragic disservice.

Whether or not you like advances in AI, or any tech, doesn’t matter. At all. Doing your best to understand it does. Becoming prepared for the changes it’ll continue to bring does. Seeking ways you can take advantage of it does. Because humans are going to human and keep making stuff. For better or worse.

Adapt.

La vita è bella,

Jeff