Neutral Technologies (WIP)
At work, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to bring LLMs into a design process (by day I am a UX designer). I've been doing this because it feels like we are on the edge of a large shift in the way my job and jobs like mine work. It is also intellectually engaging and frankly fun to zoom out and think about the meta process of design and how LLMs might support or transform it. Getting on long calls with my work friend L feels a bit like being in college again, when a new field or idea opens up in front of you and you're trying to rewire your existing world around it.
It is also weird to be spending a lot of time working with and engaging with a technology that for all its potential "transformation" feels unlikely to transform the world in the ways that feel critically necessary. LLMs will not make us kinder or more understanding, they will not orient us towards justice, nor sharpen our reasoning, they will not build our resilience.
People will often claim that technology is or isn't neutral. What do I think about this (these thoughts are evolving)
In a quote attributed to Noam Chomsky he says: "technology is basically neutral. It is like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house or whether on torture, using it to crush someone’s skull, the hammer can do either”
I do agree that fundamentally people use technology. The impact the technology has on the world is the sum of who uses it, how, and for what. However, I do think that within technologies are embedded "momentums" that shape their impact.
Cell phones have impact both "bad" and "good". They are used for keeping families in touch, deepening relationships between friends, but also for telemarketing, scam calls, and location tracking. The momentum in this case is that cell phones are a "connective" technology. Their impact will follow from the ways in which human beings "connect", both good and ill.
Guns are a distance-based technology to exert control over another body, whether by inflicting violence or extracting compliance through intimidation. Their impact will follow from the ways and situations in which human beings exert bodily control over one another and their environment.
(thoughts to be continued)