The big thing

I was in a bit of a funny mood yesterday, couldn’t quite concentrate. At a point in time I found myself in a one on one and for various reasons was ranging about on numerous topics but none with focus or intent. My communication was sloppy.

At a point in time I said something about the economy, how it’s too complicated a thing and resists control. This was said, loosely, in response to government actions that the person I was talking with, considers to be harmful, destructive even. I suggested that perhaps we would do better without any government at all (this is not my position, I am all for lawful governance) but when we have the present arrangement then it is certainly better, for those who have to service it, to better do without it.

This brought about a rather Pythonesque reply along the lines of what about the roads. What about the roads indeed; if potholes be the price of liberty.

From this position and in respect of the roads I suggested that necessity is the mother of invention and that it is perfectly permissible that some arrangement for roads may transcend the necessity of having an entire machinery of state tramping down upon us - I didn’t quite state it like that, as that would have been rude, but evidenced it using the example of the railways. The railways were largely the incredible engine of growth and innovation (positive and negative) of the 19th century. I am a fan of railway history and the incredible consequences that they birthed. The railways were a private venture (though it gets a bit murky…)

To this my companion wondered as to what the next big thing may be; I ventured that it has already happened and that we are now, wittingly or otherwise, dealing with the consequences. That thing is the internet and it is as profound as the invention of the printing press. The problem is of course, as it was with the printing press, one of control. AI, or more appropriately named, LLM is a consequence of the internet, without the one you would not have the other as it is properly understood, LLM exists as a means of control, both for good and for bad. And that is where the frontier, the margin is, and where the battle that will define the next phase of human history is taking place. The winner will control the past.

Train out.