Most people ain’t ever gonna question their tech-overlords

Most people seem to be more than happy to just use whatever LLM-based tools and tool harnesses are made available to them, without ever asking where this stuff comes from or how it even works.

Harvested by the MatrixThey’d never really questioned the shape any of the other supposed technological advances—smart phones, social media, a web comprising mostly a handful of corporate walled gardens—that have drastically altered so many lives, so why should they start now?

They chirp that AIs are doing all of the work and will soon be smarter than humans. They chirp that the AIs are getting better, never wondering how that can be. Is it that the models are actually getting more capable? Or have we hit diminishing returns on model size and complexity? Is it maybe that the forest of non-LLM software—traditional software—surrounding the LLM—the harness and guardrails—have gotten better at validating and trying again until a useful result pops out?

They don’t wonder whether engineers are writing most of that code, or whether engineers are using LLMs to bootstrap the next versions of the harnesses that will let them bootstrap the next version of the harnesses … but man, these things are not autonomous; they are very much iterating toward a result and then stopping.

Or hey, maybe there’s more to it than that—we’re trillions of dollars and probably tens of thousands of man-years deep at this point[1]—but they don’t even get far enough to ask how we got here.

They don’t ask how much effort was put into building it, how much effort and energy and resources are put into keeping it running, or what the opportunity cost of all of this is.

They just blindly use whatever is given to them, and whatever they’re told is the next great thing, without wondering whether they’ve had to give up affordable housing, addressing climate change, or a functioning health-care system for it.

Zombies in Wall-EThey don’t care whether the rollout is economically unsustainable because they are basically incurious, pampered babies who have never had to suffer any real setbacks, strife, or want. Prices go up a bit, but they can easily afford the change, though they’ll complain a bit.

Being someone who asks these questions feels like being trapped in a bathysphere whose air supply isn’t going to last until surfacing. They’re wondering what the oxygen debt will do to them as they try to squeeze through the obvious bottleneck hurtling towards them. But the other two members of the crew shake their heads sadly and just turn up the air supply, flooding the cabin with oxygen, smiling, and saying, “see? There’s plenty of air? What are you worried about? Don’t you believe in technology and the future?”