Reflections 18th May

When AI stalls, our imagination needs to soar.

The sense of disquiet I mentioned in recent posts continues.

I have been thinking of it as the space between what moves slowly—our cultures, values, beliefs, and the other qualities that hold us together as communities—and what moves increasingly quickly—technology and what technology enables in our economies, from ultra-high-speed trading to frantic social media.

It feels like turbulence, as the fast meets the slow, and it reminds me of the basics of powered flight—that no matter how much power we have available, if we lose airflow over the wing, we stall.

I’m thinking of our communities as the wing—something relatively slow to change—and the stories we tell ourselves about the potential of technology, particularly AI, as the changeable airflow that keeps us flying. It is not a comforting thought:

In 2009, Air France Flight 447 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. It took years to find the wreckage and understand what had happened, but when investigators pieced it together, they found…