The Uncertainty Paradox

04/02/24 • 34 min

The impact that technology has on psychology is a new field of research, and one where the multi-decade studies required to give definitive answers are still many years away. One of the other fields being covered is the area of certainty. Is the internet making people to certain about the opinions? Too close-minded to the possibility that they might be wrong, or might have more to learn? And to what extent is the internet responsible for a crisis in over-confidence? Or is it simply another manifestation of a totally natural mammalian tendency towards confidence?

These are difficult questions to answer, not least because they scratch at the core question that should be vexing technologists. Is technology good for the human brain? Or is technology simply the result of a human brain that’s screwed up in all the ways that technology is? Which came first, chicken or egg; technological nonsense-boosting or the scattershot human brain?

To answer all this, I’m joined by Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention, and the more recent Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. It’s the latter book we talk about mainly, and because we recorded this interview a few weeks ago, I’ve largely forgotten what we spoke about. Maybe the content of this episode is the greatest uncertainty of all. Anyway, I’ll be listening and hopefully you will too.

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

The theme music is 'Internet Song' by Apes of the State

The artwork is by Tom Humberstone.

NEDLUDDLIVES.COM

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast.

Written and presented by Nick Hilton.

The theme music is 'Internet Song' by Apes of the State

The artwork is by Tom Humberstone.

NEDLUDDLIVES.COM

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

A Brief History of (predominantly Artificial) Intelligence

Today, we're speaking to Kester Brewin, an author who works for the delightfully named Institute for the Future of Work here in London. He’s just about to release a new book called God-like: a 500 year history of Artificial Intelligence in myths, machines and monsters. It's a book which charts the ideas that underpin everything – from ChatGPT and Dall.E to the recently-released Sora – back to their roots. Is there something quasi-theological about the way we discuss the possible implications of these radical new technologies? Don’t think of this as a history of Artificial Intelligence, per se, but a history of the impulse that has led us, inexorably, towards AI.

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast, written and presented by Nick Hilton.

The theme music is 'Internet Song' by Apes of the State.

The artwork is by Tom Humberstone.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

The Fall of the House of Apple: has the Silicon Valley giant become deeply uncool?

it’s time to talk about Apple. Apple that big, sleek, glossy company with a current market cap of some $3.3 trillion dollars. The same Apple with whose products you are, quite plausibly, listening to this podcast. Indeed, they’re the reason a podcast is called a podcast: the cast is from broadcast, but the pod? That’s from the iPod. Remember those?

Apple has long felt like one of those tech companies which are, materially, nation states. Is part of FAANG the spooky sounding concatenation of Big Tech supremos, alongside Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. As a sidenote, I like the suggestion that FAANG should now be replaced by MANAMANA for Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, and Adobe.

Where other companies – like, naming no names, Meta – have ebbed and flowed with the tides of both their products and society’s preferences, Apple has been resilient. Good hardware release has followed good hardware release, and the iPhone has become the most important piece of technology on the market. Even where products from competitors like Samsung and Huawei appear to technologically outweigh the Californian company’s offering, they’ve still found themselves chasing Apple’s tail. The modern smartphone is, consequentially, build entirely in the image of the iPhone. But why is this?

It's because the commodity that Apple has always traded in, above and beyond everything else, is cool. The products don’t look like nerd-baiting CPUs, they look like accessories for the Met Gala. iOS doesn’t look all goofy like Linux, it looks like it’s been designed by some graphic designer who publishes a coffee table book of artistic nudes of his Japanese girlfriend. Everything is smooth and fluid, like liquid slowed to a fraction of its motional speed.

But is Apple’s era as the purveyor of technological cool at an end?

On this episode we speak to Slate's tech and business reporter Nitish Pahwa about the possible fall of the House of Apple...

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