Technology

information & communication technology

sensemaking through the slop

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The image below is one I have often used in explaining sensemaking with the PKM framework. It describes how we can use different types of filters to seek information and knowledge and then apply this by doing and creating, and then share, with added value, what we have learned. One emerging challenge today is that our algorithmic knowledge filters are becoming dominated by the output of generative pre-trained transformers based on large language models. And more and more, these are generating AI slop. Which means that machine filters, like our search engines, are no longer trusted sources of information.

As a result, we have to build better human filters — experts, and subject matter networks.

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working for capitalists

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The automation of human work is an ongoing objective of our capitalist systems. Our accounting practices amortize machines while listing people as costs, which keeps the power of labour down. The machines do not even have to be as good as a person, due to our bookkeeping systems that treat labour and capital differently. Labour is a cost while capital is an investment. Indeed, automation + capitalism = a perfect storm.

Recently, The Verge reported that the CEO of Shopify, an online commerce platform, told employees — ‘Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.’ The underlying, completely misinformed assumption being that large language models and generative pre-trained transformers are as effective at thinking and working as humans.

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every medium reverses its properties when pushed to its limits

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In 2018  — seeing the figure through the ground — I used the Laws of Media developed by Marshall and Eric McLuhan to examine the impact of social media. McLuhan’s Laws state that every medium (technology) used by people has four effects. Every medium extends a human property, obsolesces the previous medium (& often makes it a luxury good), retrieves a much older medium, and reverses its properties when pushed to its limits. These four aspects are known as the media tetrad.

This image was the resulting tetrad.

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rebuilding trust one catalyst at a time

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I have worked in the fields of human performance improvement, social learning, collaboration, and sensemaking for several decades. Currently in all of these fields the dominant discussion is about using and integrating generative artificial intelligence [AKA machine learning] using large language models. I am not seeing many discussions about improving individual human intelligence or our collective intelligence. My personal knowledge mastery workshops focus on these and leave AI as a side issue when we discuss tools near the end of each workshop. There is enough to deal with in improving how we seek, make sense of, and share our knowledge.

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let’s go on to organize

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Ten years ago I wrote a series of posts for Cisco on the topic of ‘The Internet of Everything’ (IoE), which was a variation on the Internet of Things, or the idea that all objects, such as light-bulbs and refrigerators, would be connected to the internet. With AI in everything now, I guess we are at that stage of technology intrusion, or rather techno-monopolist intrusion.

I would like to review some of the highlights from a decade ago.

tl;dr — little has changed

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unintended but not unknown

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From The Guardian — Not quite religion, not quite self-help: welcome to the Jordan Peterson age of nonsense.

But living on social media, seeing the world through its lens, is like returning to a pre-information age. First, because everything is current. Records of previous discussions fade quickly – miss a day and it is almost impossible to catch up. Instead, as with cycles of oral history, memories of the past are collective and mutable.

As history fades, so does truth itself. If information is about extracting signal from noise, social media is about turning up the noise. Among the flow of dubious facts, it can be hard to determine which to cling to. Meanwhile, mob mentality ramps up the risk of speaking up against the beliefs of a large group.

It is in such environments that meaning becomes tribal. Your beliefs are not really about the external facts, but about which group you identify with. People rely less on their own capacity for reason and more on each other. This is the petri dish from which systems of faith have always tended to arise. —Martha Gill, 2024-11-24

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decentralized social media

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‘Decentralised social media is more than just a technical shift; it’s a step toward restoring autonomy and trust in our digital lives, empowering individuals and communities to connect without compromising their values or privacy.’ —Zhilin Zhang, University of Oxford, 2024

In November 2022 — from platforms to covenants — I wrote that I firmly believe open protocols connecting small pieces loosely joined is a better framework than any privately owned social media platform. Twitter was just too darned easy for many years. I am connecting more on Mastodon though I have not mastered all of its functions. Mastodon is an open protocol and anyone can put up a server and connect to what is called the ‘fediverse’, a federated network of hosts using the protocol.

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farewell little bird

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I started using Twitter in late 2007, at the urging of several friends, who felt that as a blogger it would be a good way to extend my reach. And it did. From 2012 to 2021 Twitter (Tweetbot) was one of my top three tools for learning. It dropped to fourth place after Musk bought the company and then it dropped completely off my list.

Over the years I have noted that the micro-blogging platform let me stay in loose touch with many people. I wrote that next to my blog, Twitter was my best learning tool and allowed me to stay connected to a diverse network [SEEK & SHARE]. For several years Twitter was the largest source of visitors to this blog. It even eclipsed Google search.

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full bloom blogging

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Jon Naughton in The Guardian — The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted — notes that Dave Winer’s blog is now 30 years old. Winer invented RSS which easily syndicates blogs and ensures that podcasts can be played on your application of choice. Like Winer, when I started I also thought that blogging was for everyone. It’s not.

“I was born to blog. At the beginning of blogging I thought everyone would be a blogger. I was wrong. Most people don’t have the impulse to say what they think.” —Dave Winer

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post on your own site

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I have talked about the topic of owning your data in 2004, 2007, 2009, 2014, & 2017. In summary, I have promoted having a personal blog or website to initially publish any work, and then share it on various social media channels (controlled by someone else) as these come and go.

In 2014 I wrote a post sponsored by Cisco, on the ‘internet of everything’ (IoE) and owning our data. I said that the danger is that a few companies will have control of data factories and freelancers will become the product. As they say with social media, if you are not paying for the service, then you are the product. The IoE may increase the speed of automation, making more human jobs obsolete, as data become a capital resource. Will data factories become the new breed of middle-men while freelancers lose control? This could be a growing area of social and economic tension in the near future.

That future is here.

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