Powerful Hivemind, Disempowered Individuals - BlogPowerful Hivemind, Disempowered Individuals<br>Notes of a conflicted AI maximalist<br>1498 words<br>v1<br>←→2026-06-12 14:10:31
Writes someone on the internet:
Software was a field in which human genius, even individual genius, could flourish against
corporate titans. (See Linux or Minecraft).
But a future in which software is created by burning through tokens is one where capital again rules[1]
which echoes this quote from my post from yesterday:
Man’s collective mastery of nature, moreover—even if we could ignore the mounting evidence that this too is largely an illusion—can hardly be expected to confer a sense of confidence and well-being when it coexists with centralizing forces that have deprived individuals of any mastery over the concrete, immediate conditions of their existence. The collective control allegedly conferred by science is an abstraction that has little resonance in every-/day life. Scientific technology has made life more secure in many ways, but its destructive side, most dramatically revealed by the development of nuclear weapons, adds to the feeling of insecurity that derives from the individual’s diminishing control over his immediate surroundings. […] The structure of modern experience gives […] far more encouragement to a sense of helplessness, victimization, cynicism, and despair.[2]
It seems to be an unfortunate fact about technological progress that, while it may — favourably seen — provide many comforts, these benefits accrue at the collective level, while individuals are left with ever less agency.
I remember an episode from my younger years when, after a computer outage, outrage stopped me, having witnessed the impasse this brought the (woman) clerk into when trying to conclude business in a local tobacco & magazines shop. I knew that if it was the shop of someone who trusted her, she would have seen the possibility and been able to register the transaction on a piece of paper and, though things would have moved slower for a little while, no feelings of helplessness would have been necessary.
Examples abound. You can’t repair your car on your own anymore. Another one: I know someone who bought an off-road buggy. The thing shuts itself off after 100 km and a guy has to come out and inspect it, no matter what. The same, I’ve heard, goes for many big agricultural machines.
Christopher Lasch, whose words I quoted above in the longer quote, notes that even the state socialists of the early twentieth century — the people who claimed to speak for the worker — simply assumed that workers would remain “a cog in the machine” but “would gladly submit to factory discipline if their material position could be made tolerably secure. The pleasures of consumption would make up for the monotony of the job.” De-risked, comfortable, and with nothing left to decide.[3]
The particular relevance to the current moment is, of course … drumroll … AI. And having said all that, despite immersing myself for a couple of days in AI-skeptic material, I haven’t budged an inch from my AI-maximalist standpoint as a developer, which is basically that there is no point to anything without AI. To me it seems pointless not to use it. Mind you — pointless, not futile; futile in the sense that this wave rolls over us and we can’t do anything about it. It’s more from the ego perspective: I can’t see the point of doing anything the hard way when there is an easy way (with a couple of provisos — but I’m talking here about getting things done).
There is this quote from Wendell Berry which I came across recently:
We must achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do. We must waste less.[4]
I agree with it in sentiment. Good art, it seems to me, is often subtractive. A line of wisdom I once heard: “The more I know, the less I use.” Elsewhere, writing about why he would not buy a computer, Berry lets us know:
My standards are not speed, ease, and quantity. I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with a pencil, I have written too fast, too easily, and too much. I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine.[5]
While a specific word for too much of “mid” quality will immediately be on the tip of everyone’s tongue, we need to remember that Berry’s lines are from the late ’80s and early ’90s, when we worried a lot about the limited carrying capacity of Mother Earth. Not that this is no longer a topic — but as long as resources seem more or less unlimited, I am not sure what would make us collectively resist the temptation. Not that arguments “from externalities” cannot be made. Far from it. But I think the economics are just too compelling. To put it crudely, even distastefully: an argument can be made that reduces the human elevator...