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It claims too much, I think, in painting a picture of hapless individuals at the mercy of large tech companies. While the compulsion and force of habit is strong, I think for most of us it falls short of being usefully called addiction. Consequently, we have more agency over the conduct of our lives than a dopamine culture framing seems to suggest. But if we have more agency than we’re given credit for, then we also have more responsibility. It may be tempting to believe we have less agency than we, in fact, possess precisely because it frees us from the burden of responsibility.
Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet
The Convivial Society
Yes, I write longhand with a pen and tablet. This is hard for people to believe but to me the computer is the spawn of Satan. Then again, I’ve always been a Luddite, much saddened by the invention of the auto. Many people think a Ferrari is beautiful but it isn’t if you compare it to a horse.
Courage and Survival
brickmag.com
In chess, which for decades now has been dominated by A.I., a player’s only hope is pairing up with a bot. Such half-human, half-A.I. teams, known as centaurs, might still be able to beat the best humans and the best A.I. engines working alone. Programming has not yet gone the way of chess. But the centaurs have arrived. GPT-4 on its own is, for the moment, a worse programmer than I am. Ben is much worse. But Ben plus GPT-4 is a dangerous thing.
A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft
James Somers
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