Author: zach

Y Bother: The X-Risk of Artistic Creation
“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
*Disclaimer: when I use the term AI, I’m not referring to just Strong AI or AGI, but the other “pre-AI” automation or ML models that exist today as well. The “concept of AI” if you will. I’m not an AI researcher or even a competent enthusiast, so don’t take my knowledge of the technology as comprehensive.*
While riding the waves of the future’s existential crises, there’s more than enough to be worried about. There’s likely equally enough to be optimistic about as well, though my brain (despite various training attempts) tends to look for the problems, so that I may identify–or at least be aware of–potential solutions. I spend way too much time online cutting through the brush with my query machete, attempting to find the “true” answers to my debacles. Unfortunately for me, I always come up short due to the whole “you can’t predict the future” thing. I don’t want to predict the future, I would just like more general assurance of some larger-scale concepts.
In the field of artificial intelligence, X-risk (short for existential risk) is defined as a risk that poses astronomically large negative consequences for humanity, such as human extinction or permanent global totalitarianism. There’s a ton of writing on this subject, and I don’t want to go into that here since it’s deeply researched, and many people are working on it, and every company that’s trying to develop artificial general intelligence has departments on safety and risk–arguably the most important part of AI research. I want to talk about how AI is and will continue to affect us creatively — the more specific “micro” creative risks of the future of AI — where the line should be on development and the why behind some of the work in the field towards an artistic AI.
As a layman, it’s been my understanding that the purpose of AI is to alleviate the more tedious, time-consuming drudgery that humans either aren’t good at or dislike doing in their jobs. As someone who spends time on the tech-focused parts of the internet, I’ve seen attempts to create ML models that not only take over the monotonous but the enjoyable as well. A model is an algorithm that automatically improves through experience and the use of data. You teach a model on what’s known as training data so that it can make decisions and predictions without explicitly being programmed to do so. While I understand we haven’t achieved “true AI ”, models like DALL-E, a version of GPT-3 (one of the most cutting edge language models), present some problems that should and are being discussed in the community.
DALL-E generating images from a prompt – OpenAi
Just because we can doesn’t mean we should
The technology industry at large has a habit of trying to solve everything using technology and tends to focus on the wrong problems. Tech is trying to “solve” aging when they should be focusing on solving premature unnecessary death. Many other things the industry sets out to solve would be better tackled by reworking existing systems, or simple communication. We don’t need a new productivity tool or a social media app, we need understanding, civility, and community. Technology isn’t the problem, it’s greed. The problems we face as a society are complex and systemic, where technology should be used as a seasoning rather than the main ingredient in many of our recipes of progress. Even if we can create true AI, does that mean we should?
In the design and product industry, good products are built and designed by asking “Why?” If the product has no purpose, or the design doesn’t solve the problems of the intended audience, then why are we building it? We should ask the same of AI. What is the goal of AI? What are we striving for? We have enormous problems to face as a global society, politically, environmentally, etc. AI may be able to help with some of these issues, but not everyone is working on solving these problems. Many showcases of AI online are in a creative capacity. An AI that writes a story, paints a picture or creates a song. At a lower level, it’s a novelty and fun for all and may be useful to commercial artists, at a higher level it becomes a meaning crisis.
We can’t talk about micro creative X-risks of AI without talking about the macro as well. As the technology quickly gets better, how long before it can write a coherent novel, paint a true work of art, or write the next hit song? Where is the line when working on this type of technology? Most of the reasoning behind this work is to help humans with their creative work, not take it over. A partner rather than a competitor. That would be nice if that’s where it ends. A technology that helps with writer’s block, great. A technology that helps brainstorm ideas, great. But if the technology exists, what’s to stop people from going further and having AI do it all on its own? True, it will raise the bar for creatives. If it’s easier for anyone to create a bad romance novel, then the true romance novelist will have to work harder to make better work. That’s a good thing, but for many consumers will they care?
Many consumers of art – whether it’s visual, written, or auditory, want the human relationship that comes from being the audience. That’s where much of the enjoyment of good art comes from, knowing that someone else in the world created it, and is connecting with you through their art, knowing it’s from a fellow ape. If mindless consumption is the goal then it’s not really related at all, right? Let the floodgates of crap open. If 99% of things are “bad” anyway, what’s the difference if it becomes 99.8%?
Portaits from Artbreeder
The future of art – process over product?
I believe that there will probably be three categories of art in the future – human-made, human + machine-made, and machine-made. What does machine-made art look like? From generative artists of today, it’s surreal and abstract, while the models like Artbreeder and DALL-E create more concrete examples. Maybe in the future, there will be an Etsy just for human-made products if non-artists get the same idea of trying to take the easy road to make money with little effort. I think without question there will be AI-augmented work, even something as simple as Grammarly can constitute as an “augmented experience.” But I’m of the hope that the industries that value the art they create, will focus on human-made and augmented work rather than just machine-made. Machines may make “art” but they cannot make your art (on their own). There will still be a reason to create, to get your music, thoughts, and visuals into the world.
Even though computers are better at Go or Chess, people still play. When it comes to art, the goal isn’t to be the best at something, it’s the act of creation and connection. So does it matter if someone else can paint “better” than you? Will you stop painting because you aren’t the “best”? Maybe AI will just be another factor in that decision, if someone or something is better than you at doing something, why do it? Your art must come from you and your process, art is not just the product you create. If you can push a button and a painting appears, even if it’s technically good, who cares? It’s still not yours. AI is understood to be good at delivering a correct result, rather than an interesting process. As humans, how and why we get from A to B is just as important as what B actually is. We value the process over the product, especially in art, which the AI art of today lacks.
Famous scene from I, Robot (2004)
Hold the line
Keep in mind that we don’t need to achieve AI or AGI to induce these fears. Even today’s models like GPT-3, Google’s T5, or what GPT-4 or 5 might be capable of, are still causes for concern in many situations. One such example is this generative AI art model created by an artist called Rivers Have Wings, where the model can attempt to mimic the style of another artist. Other examples include this Twitter account, where users simply name a concept, then the AI creates a digital work based on the suggestion. But when you view completely AI-generated art, it feels empty. To me, it feels uneasy and a bit disturbing, like you’re not supposed to be looking at it. Maybe that’s the inherent attraction some find to these pieces, that there’s something humans aren’t meant to understand. Maybe I’m reading too much into it and it’s simply a novelty. AI artist Mario Klingemann, also known as Quasimondo, believes this is nothing more than “a storm in a teacup.”
“They create instant gratification even if you have no deeper knowledge of how they work and how to control them, they currently attract charlatans and attention seekers who ride on that novelty wave,” Klingemann says.
So what’s the right amount of concern to have these days? If you talk to Joe Schmoe off the street, he probably has one of the two concerns -he isn’t worried at all because he has no pulse on the technology, or he thinks AI will take over the world and make us redundant. If you go online to the Twitter or Reddit communities related to AI, you’ll find the same. Many think “it’s overhyped, interesting stuff but don’t worry for a long time” or they think “the singularity is near and we’re on our way out, might as well just give up now.” Some think we will see large disruptions from true AI in our lifetimes, others think it’s a pipe-dream and we may never get past Turing completion.
For example, this Reddit answer to the question: Can art that has been created by Artificial Intelligence be considered as “real art” or not?
“I’d tend to lean towards no. Art could broadly be defined as an expression of the human condition/experience rendered through a specific medium. So I’d say the output of an AI wouldn’t be defined as art. Though defining art definitely is almost impossible so it’s hard to come to a conclusion.”
And another comment about the future of creativity and art which gives a more bleak and depressing scenario:
“I would argue that the end of art is to arrive in our lifetime.
First for specialized narrow AI segments, and eventually all creativity, as nobody will be able to outperform the synthetic creative machines that will draw from more inputs and more feedback knowledge and data than a human brain ever could.
Music, drawing, painting, and creative writing will be outperformed by ML and the consumer will be better understood, predicted, and manipulated than by any human once could.
At some point, humanity will encounter the great stall, where you no longer feel like stepping into the arena and competing. When the machines will out-draw, out-create, and out-sell your wares, you will have to step out of the arena and submit to the loss of your creative self never being able to come close.
There will be a time when the natural artist vs. the hybrid artist will co-exist, but that era will come to close too.”
Sounds great, sign me up.
An article written by Cem Dilmegani, the founder of an AI-centric data company, condenses the results of major surveys of AI researchers showing that when asked, “Will singularity ever happen?” Most AI experts surveyed say, yes. When asked, “When will the singularity happen?” Most answered, “Before the end of the century.” This is concerning, even when we look at the past when experts predicted certain checkpoints in the development of AI will be reached already which haven’t been realized. Again, it seems nobody can predict the future, yet.
I’ve seen many online describe a future “utopia” where we’ve achieved AGI, solved all our problems, and humans are free to do whatever they want all day while we reap the benefits of a UBI. Entertainment is created on the fly and customized for our states of mind. The problem is–this is highly unlikely, skips over us solving global problems such as climate change, and with nothing but free time and no desire to progress–we would truly be redundant. And if anything we can do AI can do better, what’s the point of doing anything then? Inherent meaning, for the sake of it? Is that good enough to keep all of humanity going?
Tell it to me straight
It’s very difficult to get a straight answer on this since what I assume would be the best way to find out what the closest correct level of concern is, is to call a safety researcher at OpenAI or Deepmind and ask. I suspect even amongst that group there are different levels of concern. Many are probably techno-optimists excited for the future and have quenched their thirst from the AI kool-aid.
AI research suffers from being abstract and technical, making it difficult for those outside the field to really know what’s going on or how to feel about it. I don’t want to sound like an anti-tech Luddite, because I do believe the technology being worked on can add a lot of value to our world, and of course, the cat’s out of the bag with AI already, but I want to prevent it from going over the line of making parts of our lives too automatic and making us unnecessary. I work in the technology industry, but I’m a big believer in balance and wish we were working towards technology where it’s needed, not where it’s negatively disruptive. It’s tiring to fight ourselves for the greater good against the problems, situations, and technology we’ve created.
By combining my hopes with reality, I’m still wanting to find the “truth”, but it feels like we won’t know until we know, you know? Life is short, big changes take time, so maybe I’ll find peace in focusing on what’s important and crossing bridges when necessary. Wouldn’t that be nice? It’ll be interesting to see how the next few years play out with the development and application of this technology, though I still believe we should keep some things sacred. If I’m totally off base on these thoughts let me know, I’ll actually be relieved if there’s “not as much to worry about” and I can just move on to my next existential crisis sans AI.
July 13, 2021
Outer
A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894) – Public Domain Review
As Victor made his way down the bridge towards the skyscraper vessel that would take him from Texas to the ISS, he could only think of his son. As a single father for the past eight years, Victor tried to spend whatever time he could when he wasn’t working with Sam. Clumsily playing catch in the yard, cheering on their losing team at the local stadium, or sharing a laugh over a meal of burgers and milkshakes. He found himself reminiscing of these times with each step towards the unknown.
Victor pulled the safety belts taut around his body until he was wrapped like a braciole, his helmet partially restricting his peripheral view of the cabin. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead from the suit of armor to protect him from the elements. He was still remembering. Remembering not just the good times but the not-so-good ones as well. He thought of his ex-wife dragging her oversized luggage out the front door of their old home. He thought of Sam with tears in his eyes, his face scarlet with anger, because he had been late for picking him up from school again. He thought of the mountain of papers on his desk at home that he wished he could ignite into the night sky à la Fight Club, effectively ridding him of his financial responsibilities.
It’s unusual to find in this day and age, but being in this line of work was all Victor ever wanted to do with his life. As a kid, he would make little space sounds with his mouth from the cabin of his cardboard ship in his backyard. His room was ornate with glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. He had to be forcibly removed from the theater after the end of a show at the planetarium, his eyes hypnotized and his mind brimming with stories of the world outside of his own.
In high school, he probably saw Apollo 13 a dozen times. Wasted all his allowance on seeing that movie over and over again. And though It didn’t sway his feelings about going to space one day, he did become an enormous Tom Hanks fan. Not overly popular, he focused on his studies – math, physics, etc. Victor’s goal was to get into a good school so he could one day look down at the Earth and think about how small his peers were.
After flipping and pulling an array of different switches and levers, he heard the voice of the control room in his ear. He started to converse about his mission with the woman with the raspy voice on the other end and though he sounded ready, mentally he was ready, emotionally he couldn’t be sure.
On Sam’s tenth birthday, he had taken him to Disneyland, their first vacation together since the separation. Through all the Mickey Mouse waffles, souvenir hats, and miles of drudging through the California heat, Sam was beaming. Victor would never forget the look on his face that long weekend. That face was the battery that energized his ability to complete his mission. Everything he did was for that face.
Eighteen months wasn’t such a long time, was it? It would go by like a snap of the fingers. Sam would be thirteen when Victor returned home. A teenager already? Jesus, where does the time go? Victor was hopeful that Sam would still possess the same youthful glow, low-maintenance spirit, and admiration for his father when he returned. He hoped he understood that he couldn’t decline this mission for reasons he couldn’t yet understand and that what happened between his mother and Victor wasn’t his fault.
Victor worried Sam blamed himself for their separation. That somehow, he was the cause of the fighting, the adultery, and the spitefulness. In truth, Sam made the situation a world easier to deal with for Victor. Having a single source of honesty and truth in his life was the greatest gift he could ever receive.
What kind of a person would he be when he returned? Sure, Sam might change a bit just by staying in his Aunt’s home with her crazy four other kids and yappy dog, but how would the mission change Victor? He didn’t have a clue. From what he could ascertain from the others who had completed missions such as these before, he would feel somewhat alien upon returning, at least for a bit. It’s ironic that the ones born on Earth, full of distinctly human experiences only to leave for a short time, feel alien when they return home.
Victor thought of his sister, the future but hopefully temporary guardian of Sam and her rambunctious litter of adolescents running around her expansive mansion in the hills. They had money as her husband was a big-time hedge fund manager. They rarely sat down for dinner as a family, attended each other’s sporting events, and never shared the special moments Victor did with Sam, even with their more humble surroundings.
While the station counted down a number at a time in his ear, Victor mouthed the prayer he had left by Sam’s bedside before he left. Not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, and not setting foot in a church in decades, the mission made Victor grab on to whatever semblance of hope he could find. The countdown ended – flames shot out from beneath the ship that rattled the entire place like a six-point-five magnitude quake. Victor opened his eyes, the memories still firm in place, as he began his ascent into the unknown.
May 15, 2021
Division by Zero
“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”
James Keller
For whatever reason, many times in my life I’ve had a bad case of “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Call it growing up in white suburbia, being a neurotic millennial, or living in the digital age of vanity metrics, but there’s always been someone to compare myself to who’s got it all figured out. On a logical level, I understand that I can’t compare myself to anyone but me, who I was yesterday in contrast with who I want to become tomorrow. However, on an emotional level, it’s a bit of a different story.
Tell me if the following sounds familiar: You’ve finished work for the day and have a to-do list of your own planned for some personal projects you’d like to make regular progress on. Maybe you want to become better at drawing, so you’ve decided to crack open an Andrew Loomis book and start having fun. Before doing so, you decide to hop on Instagram or Twitter to relive your FOMO, and start scrolling.
Before long, you see that someone has posted a photo of their new painting and is getting rave reviews in the comments. It looks phenomenal, the brushstrokes, lighting, and values are all just right. You start to feel nervous, imagining what it would take for you to get to that level. You’re not ready to post your artwork online, you feel like you’ll never be that good! You feel behind in the drawing world because in your view, someone in your greater network making progress on their own somehow means you’ve made less progress.
If the above situation sounds slightly silly, it’s supposed to. It doesn’t seem silly when we’re in the middle of such an experience, but when we talk about it to ourselves or others later, it sounds almost ridiculous. This is the danger of unnecessary comparison and zero-sum thinking (plus some perfectionism peppered in).
Most things in life do not have a health bar hovering above them, depleting each time someone does something that you don’t. Just because you publish a new edition of your newsletter, that doesn’t mean I’m one blog post short in the eyes of the public. One can love their children the same amount. Loving more than one child doesn’t mean each child receives less love.
Regardless of privilege, someone is always going to have things “better” than you and someone is always going to have things “worse” than you. It’s all about perspective and what you value, of course, but this old adage does little to ease my mind about comparing myself to others based solely on outward situations. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a better way to think about this.
“Look to the cookie”
Zero-sum thinking is typically created by “black and white thinking”, a defense mechanism also known as “all or nothing” thinking or “splitting”, where we tend to think in extremes without a middle ground. Imagine a student, who feels that their only two options are either to get good grades or drop out of school. They fail to see the myriad of other options between the two, namely the “gray area”; we do this to ourselves in the places of our lives where it’s least useful.
In game and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of utility of the other participants. Along with the economic situation, this concept goes further to thought. We experience “zero-sum thinking” where we perceive situations as zero-sum games, feeling like someone’s gain is another’s loss. In other words, you gain, I lose, and the net change is zero.
In a zero-sum game, a player never benefits from communicating her strategy to her opponent. This isn’t how most of life works. For example, giving everyone equal rights doesn’t mean that each person has fewer rights. In this respect, life is not a seesaw where if one person goes up the other goes down, both can be at the same level off the ground.
Naturally, there are situations where zero-sum games are quintessential, such as sports or sharing a dessert. In sports, someone has to win and someone has to lose, and as we’re all aware, for your partner to have a slice of cake, it means one less slice for us to enjoy. On the contrary, buying or selling something is not an example since both parties gain from the situation. One side makes money while the other gets whatever they paid for.
There’s a fallacy in economics called the lump of labor fallacy, in which the general idea is that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world or a fixed amount of work to be done in an economy. I feel like this is related to zero-sum because it follows the same pattern of thought that something is limited when in reality it isn’t. There probably isn’t an infinite amount of work to be done in an economy, but there definitely isn’t too little.
We need to go deeper
Why do we have a tendency to think this way? It appears there are both immediate and evolutionary causes for us to fall into the trap, and they aren’t always apparent to us, so we need to dig a little deeper.
For an immediate cause, we can point to a person’s individual development, their experience they have with resource allocation, and their worldview. We can speculate that if one had to protect their food from their ravenous siblings or else there wouldn’t be enough for them to eat while they were growing up, maybe they’re more likely to view situations as zero-sum when they aren’t. People growing up on opposite sides of the socioeconomic spectrum may both be more likely to go down this line of thinking, that when one side gains something it means the other has to lose it. Regardless of the factual situations where the rich take from the poor, this is just an example to illustrate possible susceptibility to think in a zero-sum manner.
From an evolution perspective, we can look to our Neolithic ancestors, where there was fierce competition for scarce resources. The development of technology was slow, unlike today, and there was no incentive for humans to understand economic growth. That became the default way we think, which then has to be unlearned. We feel entitled to a certain share of a resource, and today this turns into unnecessary competition between us on things that we don’t need to compete for.
I also don’t want to blame social media, but truthfully, I believe it does play a large role when it comes to our tendency for zero-sum thinking. If you remove the negative stimuli from your life, then it becomes more difficult to experience the negative thought patterns that it helps to cause. On the other hand, social media can be amazingly helpful in finding like-minded individuals, learning, and inspiration.
At the end of the day, like most things, responsible social media use is a balancing act. Some of us are naturally “always online” and have no problem spending much of our free time on social media, some even make their living from social media. For those of us with a tendency to slip into some bad habits when we spend too much time on social media, maybe it’s worth looking into a more balanced social media diet.
It’s all relative
Going down the path of zero-sum thinking can be a relativity trap. We’re frequently looking to others to see their progress in a game that’s unwinnable. We’re playing games of chicken, which is to say, a lot of work trying to pinpoint someone else’s journey when we should focus on our own. We tend to anchor ourselves on the wrong things, like money, Instagram likes, or follower counts. These things aren’t inherently bad to worry about, but it’s when we seethe with envy over another’s circumstances that we only hurt ourselves in the process.
How can we avoid this biased way of thinking? One answer is simply to focus on the value of the things we do own rather than the things we don’t. We can avoid anchoring ourselves on one small part of a much larger picture. If we help others more often, rather than seeing them as competition that needs to be beaten, we can create feelings of reciprocity, which leads to much more fruitful and pleasurable outcomes. Avoiding the short-term gains in true zero-sum situations in exchange for long-term ones is also a helpful reframing.
Personally, I‘m certainly not all aboard the train that is free from zero-sum thinking, especially when it comes to my work or other interests, but if I’ve learned anything from this last year, it’s that we can all do with a bit more self-acceptance and support towards one another. If I can stop seeing situations as zero-sum so often, I will most likely be less envious and happier with my own lot.
Someone else being good at something doesn’t mean I’m unable to reach that level if I too put in the hard work, so I should be inspired rather than defeated. That’s the mindset I’m hoping to cultivate going forward, and I imagine we all could do with a little more appreciation and a little less unnecessary competition.
—
Further reading:
- Belief in a Zero-Sum Game as a Social Axiom: A 37-Nation Study
April 16, 2021
Pleasure
A Roman Feast – Roberto Bompiani
James Gramercy worked 60 hour weeks. Before daybreak, he made the hour-long train ride from the suburbs into the city, and at dusk, he would take the train back. His exhausted eyes, when they could stay open, traced the lines around the train car, the steel doors shaking with the wind and each bump of the track. He could count on one hand how many others rode the train at this time.
When James returned home in the evenings, his children were already asleep. His wife, Pamela, herself weary from taking care of the house and the children, frequently would doze off on the couch after cleaning up from supper and performing the nighttime routine for the children. This carousel spun indefinitely for the couple, never stopping to change course.
On Thursday evening, James stepped off of the returning train and nearly broke his neck on a piece of paper on the ground. After catching his balance, James picked up the paper and examined it. There was a photo of a man and woman of above-average attractiveness, laughing at each other. In bold sans-serif font across the top, it read, “Pleasure Salon.” Next to the photo of the models, the caption read, “Come take care of your troubles the way you take care of your hair.”
James exhaled from his nostrils and laughed to himself. “What a load of crap,” he said under his breath. He put the flyer in his briefcase and headed for home.
Upon returning home he found Pamela sprawled on the loveseat, shockingly still awake on her phone.
“Hon, check this out.”
James tossed the flyer on Pamela’s chest.
“Hmm. What do you think? Are you going to go?” she asked.
“What?! No way!” James was surprised she thought to ask him that.
“That stuff sounds like a waste of money and time.”
“Well, I know several people who’ve gone to these new salons before and they said they’re pretty incredible!”
“Really? Like who?”
She looked up at James with a forgiving face.
“Like Erica and Randy Walters, and also Victoria Strauss went just the other day. She said she goes practically every week! And Erica and Randy said it saved their marriage.”
“No kidding. Well, maybe we should give it a shot. How about this weekend?”
“We can’t this weekend, we were going to take the kids to the beach remember?”
“Oh yeah. Damn.” James said disappointedly.
“But you should go! I can take the kids, it’s no problem, really.” Pamela said.
“Really? No trouble?”
“Really. Go ahead and try it out and let me know how it goes. I’m interested to see if it works for you!”
“Well alright, then. It’s settled. Saturday I’ll try out this “salon”.”
Saturday morning came around and after Pamela drove off with the kids to the beach, James got on his bike and rode the 5 miles to the salon.
He parked his bike near the entrance and locked it in place.
The front door swung open, a ding sounded, and a woman looked up from the front desk at James.
“Hello, sir! How are you today?”
“Fine, thanks. This is the pleasure salon?”
“Why, yes it is!” she had the demeanor of someone who had taken one too many doses of Zoloft.
“Just sign in here and we’ll walk through how it works.”
James filled out his information on the waiver, left his wife’s cellphone as the emergency contact, and checked the boxes declaring he had no allergies or history of open-heart surgery.
James slid the form back to the woman at the desk and she happily took it from him and scanned it into the computer.
“Alrighty, James. You ever been to a tanning salon?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Okie Dokie, well it’s really simple. First, you’ll go down the hall to room number five. Make sure to take all your possessions out of your pockets and put them in the locker outside the room before you go in. Then, you’ll need to disrobe down to your underwear and put on the special goggles we have in the room. There’s a dial next to the pleasure bed, make sure to turn it to the setting that says, “Medium” and not anything further. You have to work your way up to go farther. Since this is your first time, just go to Medium, okay? That’s really important.”
James nodded.
“Finally, after turning the dial you just get in the bed, and it will automatically close once you’re in. The bed will open when the session is over. You don’t have to worry about opening it.”
“So what do I do when I’m in the bed?” James asked.
“Just think happy thoughts! The bed takes care of the rest and you’ll come out of your session much happier than when you went in. Guaranteed!”
James gave a little smile and started down the hall. There were photos along the hallway of happy-looking models. Tossing their babies in the air, riding bikes, and eating beautiful meals. The whole place had a floral, coconut smell. James couldn’t tell if people were in the other rooms since the doors were closed, but he had a suspicion there were.
At room number five, James closed the door behind him and found himself in a ten-by-ten room with just a chair, something that resembled a tanning bed, and a coat hanger. He put his clothes on the chair and squinted at the dial next to the bed.
The dial had ten settings, the lowest read, “Infant” and the highest had a print that was too small to read as if it had been rubbed off over time. James set the dial to medium and the bed opened. He put on the goggles and lied down on the mattress-like bed.
A quiet ditty played as the bed’s door began to close around James. He took a deep breath, preparing for whatever was to come.
Within seconds, James felt his face turn into a smile. He felt euphoric within half a minute. James began thinking of his family at the beach, having a blast. He saw his wife’s smiling face, glowing and youthful. He saw his children laughing and playing in the sand. He could smell the ocean, feel the breeze, and hear his family’s voices. It was so real!
As James was enjoying his session, a maintenance worker who was repairing a bed left the room adjacent to his and slammed the door behind him. The dial next to James’ bed fell to the right from the force.
James began to see things in even more vividness. He saw himself scratching the winning lottery ticket, drinking champagne on a terrace on the Amalfi coast, and shaking hands with the president.
A technicolor haze existed throughout what James was experiencing, though he didn’t notice. It was a surreal, hedonic paradise. Everything he wanted was coming true, he thought.
“I hope this never ends.” James thought to himself. “I could go on like this forever.”
After some time, the session cut to a close, the bed opened in the small room again. James removed the goggles and sat up. He felt drunk. Stumbling, he got up from the bed to put on his clothes again. He fell to the ground on his hands and knees. He was enraged. He couldn’t remember what had just happened or even where he was.
He looked up at the large framed poster in the room, it displayed a colorful advertisement for a pleasure salon, an experience that promised to whisk your worries and doubts away from you.
James felt nothing in the realm of pleasure. He felt nauseous, his head was throbbing and his eyesight fuzzy. Wincing, he looked left towards the dial next to the bed. The dial was turned to two o’clock. He couldn’t make out what the dial said.
“I can’t tell what it says,” James grunted.
“Print’s too damn small.”
James finally stood up, clumsily put his clothes back on, and left the salon. He had regained his balance by the time he returned to his bike out front. He threw his leg over the top tube and went on his way back home.
An hour later, Pamela and the kids arrived back at the house from their day at the beach. The front door flew open and the kids ran in to greet their father.
“Daddy!” the kids shouted. They jumped into his arms and he held them close. Such a scene never failed to make James smile. Today, James felt nothing.
March 22, 2021
Electron
Thomas Edison’s Patent Application
As an electrician, you don’t get a lot of opportunities to sit down with people and just talk. In a small town, you’d think everyone knows everyone, like in the television shows. Nobody really asks me for much here except if I want a glass of water while I’m working. Water and electricity aren’t friends, you know?
Erin was the first person to actually ask me how my day was going, maybe for the last few months. She was taller than me, though not a difficult feat, but her presence was comforting like we had been friends for years.
“Busy these days?” Erin asked.
“Doing just fine, ma’am. Are you new to the area?” I asked back.
She told me she had grown up in a nearby town, but she moved around here so her kid could go to a better school. Apparently, the schools in this area are some of the better ones in the county. News to me, since I feel like I learned squat in school. All I know I learned as an apprentice.
Her job was a quick one, I was finished in about an hour. Just some faulty wiring that came with the older homes in the neighborhood. I’ve seen it a hundred times. She invited me to sit down afterward and have a glass of lemonade.
It was the best damn lemonade I’d ever had. Not overly sweet, definitely sour, and goes down smooth. She said it came from a mix but I never can get it to taste like that when I make it myself.
We sat at the small wooden table in the kitchen with our glasses of lemonade. It felt natural even though I never do this with any clients. The conversation, also natural. We talked about our histories, interests, and favorite foods. I felt like I was in a casino, where I couldn’t tell how much time was going by, nor did I really care. My next job wasn’t for a while and I was enjoying her company too much.
When she smiled her eyes formed these creases next to them. They looked like crow’s feet but she was too young to really have them. Her laugh reminded me of my ex. Funny, that was the one thing I still liked about her. I even found myself laughing a few times. My cheeks were starting to get sore from all the smiling.
The door opened and a young boy who looked about 6 or 7 strolled in. “Momma? I’m home!”
“So you are my angel,” Erin said.
“Who’s this guy?” the boy asked.
“He’s the electrician, sweetie. He and I were just having a friendly chat after he finished his work.”
Still smiling, I checked my watch. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head.
“Damn!” I yelled. “I missed my other job!”
“Oh my, that’s too bad. Let me reimburse you for the job you missed,” Erin said.
I told her it was fine since I had no clue what the job was beforehand. Weird that I didn’t get a call from the client or HQ, though.
The boy kept staring at me like I owed him money. Erin was asking him how his day was at school, his eyes darting back and forth between us.
I got up to leave, feeling like I overstayed my welcome.
“I better get going. Thanks for the lemonade, it was the best I’ve ever had, really,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I enjoyed the company,” Erin said.
I gathered up my tools, threw them in the box, and headed for the front door. Erin wrote me a check for my time, and with a tip of my hat, I was on my way.
As I was walking to my truck I couldn’t believe how long I was there. A short job turned into an all-day recess. I did enjoy myself, though. Can’t help it when you meet someone you just feel at home with.
“Hey mister!” the boy ran out of the house.
“Um…d-did my mom tell you anything about my dad?”
I was confused. “What do you mean? Why would she tell me about your dad? That’s none of my business.”
“Just wondering,” the boy said. He was rocking his weight back and forth on his feet. “I’ve never met him, but I remember her saying something about electricity between him and her. I wanted to see if, well, you being an electrician and all, if she said something about that.” The boy looked at me with his head tilted to the side, waiting for an answer. He talked about adult feelings like it was nothing.
“Kid, when adults talk about electricity, sometimes they’re talking about a connection, you know? Like when two people meet and they click. It just works,” I replied.
“Oh. Well, something about you feels kinda weird to me. Like you and I are friends or something,” the boy said.
Looking at him closer, he reminded me a lot of myself when I was young. Hell, he even looked like me too. “We can be friends, if you want,” I said.
“Really? Cool!” the boy said.
His eyes lit up. Sea blue, just like mine used to be. I ruffled his hair and told him to go back inside. He ran back to the house and waved goodbye, smiling from ear to ear.
I got back in my truck, tossed my tools in the passenger seat, and looked back at the house. I started to get kind of emotional. Not crying or anything, but sort of like the feeling you get when you watch a movie where the two people finally make up after a long fight. They talk about how they really love each other and talk about how they’ll never fight again.
I had a feeling this job would stay with me for a while. Like when you wear a cotton sweater straight out of the dryer. Warm and clean. It would just come with me.
I sniffed and turned the key, looked into the sunset, and started for home.
March 7, 2021
Confession
The Confession – Giuseppe Molteni
“Uh, hello?”
A puzzled expression of uncertainty comes from the other side of the screen.
“Can I just give these to you and you can handle the rest?”, I hold up a folded piece of notebook paper.
“Erm… that’s not really how this works. You must say those aloud, my son.”
“Oh, sorry. Let me start over. I meant to say: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about 5 years since my last confession.”
“Go ahead.”
I proceed to tell the priest about the incident. I try to not leave out any important details, while also protecting the identities of those involved.
Minutes pass by as I stare at the floor, yapping away. It’s been so long, it feels strange to speak for this long without having someone else chime in or interrupt.
The smell is starting to get to me. It’s nostalgic but stale. Like a really old book that hasn’t been read in a long time. It feels like nobody has sat in this seat for years, but I know that’s not true since this is one of the busiest churches in the area.
I guess my confession turned more into a soliloquy after some time. I didn’t even know if the priest was still there or had gone to lunch. It didn’t matter as long as I could offload what had just happened.
“So, Father, if you’re still there, what should I do? I’m kind of at a loss here.”
“I’m still here, my son. To answer your question—“
My phone begins to vibrate, the box amplifying the vibration to where it’s just as loud as having the ringer on. I check the caller ID, and sure enough, I can’t ignore it.
“Sorry, I gotta take this.”
The priest raises his finger as if to ask me to wait for a second, but I grab my phone and step out of the confessional immediately.
As I walk away, out of the church and back onto the main road, I’m thinking to myself: “Wow, that actually helped. I feel so much better!”
My bosses’ stern voice on the other end of the call is like an everyday sight I’ve become accustomed to. It has no effect on me anymore. I’m half-listening, half-thinking about why I gave up religion in the first place.
Hell, if I can take what I need from it and not worry about the rest then that’s good with me. I guess that’s how I treat the other things in my life, anyway. Work is first, everything else comes after.
I want to change, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my identity in the process. I’ll keep trying to chip off the paint, layer by layer until I can start over the right way. Baby steps, I suppose. Baby steps.
February 16, 2021
Fog
November, month of fog, Honoré Daumier
The ship painstakingly slid up to the dock. The sailors couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them. They might as well have had saran wrap over their eyes.
“Captain, did we hit the dock?”
“I don’t think so, Williams. It feels like we’ve still got a few yards to go.”
“Well if you feel it…”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Williams. We’ve all had a long day so cut the attitude.”
Williams tilted his head away with a wormy smirk. Apparently, sarcasm wasn’t appreciated during such focused times. He flipped up his collar and began to squint, facing the biting cold.
“I can’t see a damned thing!” “We might as well have our eyes closed for god’s’ sake.”
“Keep it moving, keep it moving. We must be getting close.”
A thunderous roar erupts as the boat begins to furiously dance.
“Captain I think we found the dock.”
“Williams, if I could see you right now, so help me God, I would clobber you with my telescope.”
The men trepidatiously hopped from the deck, finding their footing on solid ground for the first time in what felt like ages.
One foot in front of the other, both of them thought to themselves.
“I guess keep walking–slowly– until you reach a wall or somethin’.”
“Aye aye.”
Another journey in itself just to get from the boat to a wall. Great.
The thickness in the air seemed to grow heavier with each step. Both men simultaneously have their hands on their shoulder-bags as they cup their hands near their eyes, unsuccessfully attempting to shield their eyes from the cloud-like fog.
A minute passes by, or was it just a few seconds? Thin laughter overcomes the men as they notice a clearing ahead. It’s an archway, maybe leading to a town center or courtyard, although it doesn’t matter where it goes as long as it’s out of the current situation.
The captain reaches the clearing first, breathes a sigh of relief, and removes his hand from his face, the fog no longer posing a threat to his vision.
“See, Williams? I told you we’d be out of that mess in no time.”, the Captain assured.
The captain turned around to a wall of fog just outside the archway, as dense as ever. No sign of Williams. Slightly puzzled, the Captain continued forward into the arched area.
Williams was always getting himself into trouble wherever they sailed. A clumsy prankster and a sloth most of the time, it wouldn’t be unlike him to stumble and lose his way, fog notwithstanding.
Through the archway, a grass-covered clearing was a welcome surprise. A fountain emblazoned with an emblem of the city, presumably, sat at the center of the clearing. The sky above was a light periwinkle with a dusting of clouds. The weather was mild, much like a clear spring afternoon back home.
The captain checked over his shoulder for Williams as he strolled closer to the fountain, blades of grass folding underneath his thick-soled boots.
Maybe it was the long day or the trip from the boat to the clearing, the captain’s mind was tired. The men had run out of water earlier in the day and hadn’t had a morsel of food since the bread and milk at dawn.
Not a small man by any means, the captain was dwarfed in size by the cast stone fountain. He kneeled down, his joints cracking as he supported himself with his elbow on his thigh. Faces stared back at him, intricately sculpted into the outward-facing ring of the fountain. Strangers to him, he thought. He didn’t recognize any deity or world leader in the faces’ construction.
The captain shouldered his bag further up his torso, then reached out his weathered hand to the clear fountain water. At long last, an answer to one of his problems. He didn’t care whether the water was potable or not, it could’ve had insects floating on the surface.
He slurped as much as his hand had the capacity for, relieved, the water was ice cold. He closed his eyes in appreciation of the gift, absorbing his surroundings. He shoved both of his hands into the fountain, deftly bringing water to his mouth repeatedly. With a crazed look in his eyes, he dropped his bag, got down on both knees, and drank to his heart’s content, more still.
“I’d lay off if I were you.” an unfamiliar voice said. Frozen, the captain lifted his head, looking into the eyes of the face before him.
“That water’s not free, buddy.” the face said.
Bewildered at the notion of a talking face in the fountain, the Captain assumed he was delirious from dehydration or perhaps overtired.
Unconvinced, he persisted nonetheless, drinking as much purifying water from the fountain as his hands could shuttle into his mouth.
This continued for another minute or so, before the captain finally stopped, as if he were a marionette being controlled by strings. He stood up immediately, and jumped head-first into the fountain. His entire body vanished.
The face in the fountain looked to its left, felt a sense of familiarity, and gently acknowledged the new face beside it.
February 11, 2021
The Social Blue Light Filter
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world”.
John Muir
“This was supposed to be the summer of George”
A saddened George Costanza
On New Year’s Eve 2019, millions around the world were making resolutions of bettering themselves and enriching their lives. Finally taking the time to practice piano, adopt a vegetarian diet, and meditate every day. Personally, I wanted to take more opportunities to travel this year. I boarded a plane just once in 2019, from Phoenix to Burbank to see close friends graduate from college. Shortly into 2020, something happened that took us from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to pessimistic, isolated, and stressed-out.
When COVID-19 took center stage in March, I have to admit that, as an introvert, I couldn’t help being slightly relieved that I had been given a legitimate excuse to avoid all social gatherings for the foreseeable future. Instead of trying to come up with lousy excuses or feign illness, I simply didn’t have to worry about going into the office, making social plans, or dating.
Having been a practiced pseudo-hermit, I thought that staying in quarantine from the world outside of groceries and the occasional stroll would be a cinch. Now, going on six months of the “Ronaissance” or the “Zoom Gloom,” the lifestyle that the pandemic has forced is taking a toll on my perception of the world in many aspects, one being social. Even with all the technology Silicon Valley has to offer at our disposal, can experiencing anything through a screen replace the benefits of real-world social interactions?
Like it, Love it, Gotta Have it
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ”
Artistotle, Politics
It’s well understood that humans are social creatures. Even if you’re a self-proclaimed misanthrope, there’s a biological component to being human that necessitates some form of social connection. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs places psychological needs just above being fed, warm, and safe.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
According to Maslow, humans possess an effective need for a sense of belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small. Feeling love or having a sense of belonging is foundational to feeling accomplished and truly fulfilled. We know that there’s more to “success” than money, and only we can define what that means for ourselves.
As a society, we’ve been staying connected more than ever before in the last 20 years or so, mainly through social media like Facebook and Twitter. We’ve also stayed connected through the help of things like online video games, where conversations can range from catching up with your friends to yelling profanities at your virtual enemies.
The main way we are “staying connected” during COVID appears to be through a variety of video calls. We use Zoom for work, FaceTime or Google Hangouts for friends, and maybe throw an app like Houseparty in there for good measure. We have a lot of chat-based apps like Discord or Slack that can simulate real-time talking with people all over the world over text or video, but are these options good enough for us to satisfy our needs for social connection?
One is the loneliest number
You may have heard that in our increasingly remote age, there is another epidemic taking place globally: loneliness. It’s really interesting that even though we’re more connected than ever in numerous ways, we’ve also never been more lonely.
According to Dr. John Cacioppo, a Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, the physical effects of loneliness and social isolation are as real as any other physical detriment to the body — such as thirst, hunger, or pain. He says, “For a social species, to be on the edge of the social perimeter is to be in a dangerous position.” It’s specified that to satisfy our need for social connection, we need to be around people we actually like or care about. Unfortunately, taking cover behind shopping aisles to narrowly avoid your talkative neighbor at the grocery store doesn’t really fit the bill.
In part of a 2007 research report from Wellesley College, it’s described that scientists in the fields of psychology and psychiatry “…have now really determined, without a doubt, that our brains are hardwired to connect: that we have mirror neurons that fire in response to the firing of another person’s neurons; that we actually have parts of the brain that atrophy in isolation.”
We can look at the importance of human connection when it’s especially important, when we’re growing up. Our familial relationships and friendships, among other factors, are crucial to a healthy prefrontal cortex development, and helps to set us up well for our future both mentally and physically.
There’s not an app for that, yet
Social media is a double-edged sword. In smaller doses it can be highly valuable, but social platforms are designed to keep you engaged and become addicted. Technology has been able to help us become more social online, but when you throw something like a global pandemic into the mix, we can see that it’s only come so far. I don’t believe the fulfillment of our cognitive needs by social stimuli will come from a download in the app store, but we can’t let our thinking be constrained by that.
I’m not going to throw the technological baby out with the bathwater and say technology can’t help solve this problem. Rather, it can help put us on the path to a solution. I can imagine a future where I can have coffee with friends of mine in my kitchen without them actually being there. I’m thinking that the holograms of Star Wars aren’t that crazy of an idea after all.
Ask yourself, “How can we be with other people without being with other people?” and you’ll get a lot of answers involving looking at a screen or texting. In the future, and not necessarily a distant one, we might be able to have dinner with friends in a different state or country without looking at them on an iPad. We’ve seen demonstrations of projections occupying physical space before, so it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that technology will be leveraged for this type of problem.
I think when dealing with such large and extensive problems like global loneliness, it requires more than one solution, and we can’t simply just “How might we…” ourselves out of it. Design-thinking and human-centered design can and will definitely help move the needle of solving humanities’ big issues, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking one group of people will have the metaphorical light bulb over their heads and save us all.
Where to go from here
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed numerous issues in our society, from education and healthcare, to economic and social. My hope is that instead of just racing for a vaccine and trying to move on with our lives, but that we also take the time as a society to learn from this experience. COVID-19 didn’t directly cause some of these problems — it simply revealed them.
Staying connected is a problem that has plagued us as a society since social media really took off. If I can get a hit of dopamine from a like on my tweet, why do I need to waste my time at a bar with friends? There are psychological and physiological reasons why spending time with people in person is important, and maybe as research continues we might find other ways of socializing with similar benefits.
I don’t believe that as of this time, staying connected virtually can take the place of in-person social gathering. However, for public health reasons it has to be our obligation. It’s moderately helpful mentally, that there will be a time in the hopefully not-too-distant future where we are able to spend time with people in person again.
As someone who doesn’t consider himself particularly social, I’ve acknowledged that I need some real face time. I took a lot of my in-person experiences for granted before the pandemic, such as going to the office, going out to eat, or to the gym. We’ve been given an opportunity for all of us to really experience a problem in our society, and we owe it to ourselves to give it a proper examination for potential improvements to the way we live.
September 8, 2020
Why Context is Important to Learning
Aristotle famously said, We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.“
When I have spare time, I enjoy reading books from a wide range of topics, and every so often there’s a “meta” book I read about the act of learning itself or personal development in general.
Recently, I finished reading a book called, “Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career” by Scott H. Young. The main thesis of the book is that anyone is capable of learning pretty much anything, and gives a set of guidelines for learning a ton of information in a short amount of time.
The book goes further than just learning conventionally. The stories and methods it discusses are specific to self-directed learning, also known as auto-didacticism. Young gives examples of autodidacts such as Eric Barone, who taught himself how to draw, make music, write code, and more to create his dream video game, Stardew Valley. The farming simulation RPG was, and still is, very popular across multiple consoles and had sold over 10 million copies, as of January 2020.
https://www.engadget.com/
Young writes about famous geniuses and dissects their learning styles and tries to shape the narrative that yes, there are certain people who are naturally amazing at certain things and learn certain subjects quite easily, but for the most part, many of the people whom we consider “genius” are just very dedicated and passionate about what they learn.
Cognitively Situated
One of the main topics of Ultralearning is the concept of directness. Young defines directness as simply applying the skills you learn directly to the way you want to use them. For example, if you want to learn how to write code, simply watching videos and going through tutorials will only help to a point. If you’re goal of learning to write code is to make a website, the best way to learn is by, you guessed it, making websites.
The concept of directness may sound like common sense. Sure, if I want to get good at running, I simply need to run more. Practice makes perfect, 10,000 hours, and all that. But I think directness in this context goes further than “practice makes perfect.”
Directness as a concept is seen in other subjects as well, such as neuroscience and philosophy.
In neuroscience, there is the theory of situated cognition. As explained in the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, situated cognition is defined as:
“… a range of theoretical positions that are united by the assumption that cognition is inherently tied to the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs.”
We find situated cognition validated in the real world through human interaction with activity, context, and culture. After all, we are a combination of nature and nurture when we are growing up, a metaphor for the metaphor, “you are what you eat.”
Texts about this theory go on to explain that the things we know or get good at are connected with our application in our immediate physical world. Learning anything, from a new language to a physical skill is seen not as a silo out in its own world, but is actually very contextual.
When we learn something, having context to apply our knowledge is one of the most important considerations. Thinking about why you want to learn something and the end goal you are trying to reach will not only make learning more meaningful, but you can make sure along the way that what you are learning is worthwhile to achieve your goal.
The nature of learning requires newly acquired knowledge to be actually used to really make what we learn stick. Humans are social beings, and the way which we give meaning to what we know is by having experiences and engagements with the world.
This is also why learning communities are so successful, for example, when looking at online courses, many of them have associated Slack channels or Discord servers filled with both current and former students to converse with. Even going back a bit further, to plain old forums, people having meaningful conversation about a subject can truly get more of out it. I guess participation points aren’t for nothing!
Let’s be Pragmatic about it
There is also the philosophical tradition known as pragmatism. Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the “classical pragmatists”, first defined and defended the view in the United States around 1870.
“The core of pragmatism as Peirce originally conceived it was the Pragmatic Maxim, a rule for clarifying the meaning of hypotheses by tracing their ‘practical consequences’ – their implications for experience in specific situations.”
Pragmatism says that meaning is found when something we know in theory is successful in practice. Pragmatists prioritize understanding things in terms of concrete tasks and activities rather than in terms of abstract theory. Pragmatists go so far to say that words don’t have inherent meanings attached to them from birth — instead, they gain their meanings through repeated use. At a basic level, I like to think of Pragmatism as “the philosophy of action.”
We can relate this definition to learning about something as simple as an apple, when we’re babies or toddlers. The word “apple” doesn’t mean anything to a baby, but when the baby sees or eats an apple and associates the word with the fruit, the baby assigns meaning to it and recognizes what an “apple” is in a real context.
Peirce’s cycle of pragmatism
You can read and watch all you want, but when you get right down to it, nothing will make you believe in something more than seeing it work in the real world. I’ve read a lot of self-help books over the years, and from all the things each book will have you take away, the things I remember most are the concepts I’ve tried and seen work in actual situations.
It’s kind of like your friend assuring you that “this too, shall pass” when something negative happens in your life. It’s easy to give advice when you’re not in a situation or haven’t experienced it yourself. Even with a concept as simple as giving advice to someone, you can see that we always trust the words of someone who went through what you are currently going through leagues ahead of the advice from a well-meaning friend.
After everything is said and done, we might see that our well-meaning friend was correct, just as was the person who had gone through the experience themself. We still would assign more value to the advice of an experienced person over someone else.
https://twitter.com/GHarthy/status/84051166986015129
In Closing
If you’re interested in the concept of learning, I would highly recommend reading Ultralearning, as it tells great stories, gives concrete examples, and is all-around an interesting read. When you hear that someone has studied the entire MIT undergraduate computer science curriculum in months rather than years, as Young did, it sounds ridiculous. When you hear it right from someone who did it, it sounds possible.
Even though Young learned all that information in a short amount of time, what he still remembers years later is a much smaller amount of the content he consumed. Nobody would be expected to remember an entire degree’s worth of information forever, but not surprisingly, the things he does remember are the concepts and skills he used regularly afterwards.
Applying your learnings to the real world isn’t just better for memory, it’s also more rewarding. The satisfaction of finishing a painting in real life is much more rewarding than finishing watching a YouTube series on painting.
I want to make sure that I don’t come across as someone who is saying that passively learning things isn’t valuable, because it is. The proof is in the pudding, though, as I’m sure you’ve experienced yourself. The things we do regularly or even practice every so often, sit much more comfortably in our minds than the things we learn once, and store away in the attic to forget about.
August 11, 2020
Parallels of the Scientific Method and Design-Thinking
When I was in middle school, I first learned about the scientific method. I was told there exists a process that scientists follow to make discoveries, and was amazed that I could follow the same process that impactful scientists follow in my own classroom.
We spent many lessons conducting experiments and following this process, asking questions, and testing our theories. I was never great at science in an academic sense, nonetheless I always found it interesting and recognized its importance.
From Design to Science and back again
At its core, the scientific method is a problem-solving framework. The steps are as follows:
1. Make an observation
2. Ask a question
3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation
4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis
5. Test the prediction
6. Iterate
If you’re a design practitioner or in the tech industry, this process may sound familiar to you, and not just because it’s the scientific method that many of us learn in school.
Design-thinking has become a buzzphrase, but has existed in some form for as long as people have been developing products, though it’s been popularized in the last 15 years or so.
The design-thinking framework is as follows:
1. Frame a Question
2. Gather Inspiration
3. Generate Ideas
4. Make Ideas Tangible
5. Test to Learn
6. Share the Story
Lather, rinse, iterate
The main similarities of both lie in the larger idea: testing and iteration. One of the most important aspects of both science and design is to test your ideas in real-world scenarios and iterate as necessary.
Iteration in this context is not repetition, we’re not embodying the old saying, “…doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Iteration differs from repetition because when we iterate, we slightly alter what we are testing, not testing the same version over and over again.
Within each iterative step, we test the same version multiple times, but without changing what we test, we’re not getting the best bang for our buck with each round of testing.
No idea is going to be perfect the first time around, so its up to us as developers of ideas and problem solvers to continually iterate and tweak our solution until it’s the best it can be in the given scenario.
When it’s more trouble than it’s worth
Something important to remember is there comes a point of diminishing returns. This applies more-so to product development than scientific work, because developing software doesn’t usually come with the responsibility of something like a life-saving drug.
We can observe diminishing returns when we enjoy a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. The first cookie is heavenly, so we decide to have another. The second cookie is also delicious, but not quite as enjoyable as the first. If we continue down this path of cookie inhalation, after four or five (to each their own), we probably won’t enjoy them at all anymore.
We can iterate twenty times on something and it might be better than it was the fifteenth time, but after going through the process enough, we can gauge when is truly the balanced time to call it quits.
There’s no hard and fast rule around iteration in software because every situation at each company is different. At some companies, they may find that the sweet spot for them is testing and iterating three or four times before delivering, while others may take eight to ten iterations.
With software (and possibly science, but I wouldn’t know for sure since I’m not a scientist), we have deadlines to hit. We can’t spend the rest of our days iterating on a feature or product until it’s perfect, which is an illusion anyway.
We can iterate and test a handful of times before we have to deliver tangible value to our customers and the business, so it’s important we test the right way, just enough, before iterating again.
Companies tend to follow the Agile methodology, so they have a framework to follow where they can consistently deliver value to the business and the customers over time.
In the days of yore, the de-facto way to build product was using the Waterfall methodology, in contrast to Agile, where teams deliver value in one big release after months or even years of development.
Testing can be hard to do, which is why so many companies simply don’t do it at all. It takes time and upfront effort, and when companies equate value with production, it can be a hard sell to continually do it. There’s been a ton of writing around how to conduct lean user research, so I won’t write about it here.
Our work is never done
Both science and design are “never finished”. Have you ever used a successful piece of software that never has updates? Or seen a news article that reads something like “Coffee is good for you” a year after reading an article titled “Coffee is bad for you”?
That’s kind of the point, though isn’t it? Scientific studies are happening all the time and they’re always proving and disproving hypotheses.
Nothing is certain 100% of the time, especially when dealing with something as erratic as human behavior. As outlined earlier, science usually has more weight to it’s decisions that software, so we don’t need to think that an immutable scientific truth such as gravity can be disproven as easily as a pattern in a social media application.
I like to push the importance of “done over perfect” in my job, but of course there’s a lot of nuance in that phrase. There’s a balance that we are all striving for, while trying to destroy the perfectionist in ourselves. We want the things we deliver to be great without being reckless in our delivery or overthinking ourselves into a rut.
July 20, 2020