Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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I am still not finished reading “Capital in the 21st Century” but the following introduction to Chapter 11 really got me thinking:
The overall importance of capital today […] is not very different from what it was in the eighteenth century. Only its form has changed: capital was once mainly land but is now industrial, financial and real estate.
One of my main intuitions about the coming changes is that “information” will become more important than industrial, financial and real estate assets. Or put differently “information” will be the capital of the 21st century and beyond.
This isn’t very well thought out at all yet but it is tantalizing because unlike land, machines, money or buildings information is non-rival. You and I can’t simultaneously farm the same plot of land. We can’t simultaneously use the same machine or occupy the same home or office. We can’t simultaneously spend the same dollar to buy something. But we can simultaneously access and make use of the same information.
It is not that there wasn’t information historically. It is just that its volume paled compared to what we have today stored in digital format making duplication and access free on the margin. There is some controversy over just how much information production has increased but among other things we know that every minute over 100 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube. And millions of people write blog posts such as the one you are reading (or upload songs to Soundcloud, or stories to Wattpad). And so on.
This raises some interesting possibilities. First and foremost among them is that we can overcome many of the issues of wealth and income inequality that I have been writing so much about recently by investing heavily in the information commons. One great example of that came to my attention yesterday thanks to a link Andy posted to usv.com about Open Source Seeds.
I will likely be writing more about the implications of “information capital” in the coming days as I just decided that this will be the topic for my talk at DLD NY next week.
I am still not finished reading “Capital in the 21st Century” but the following introduction to Chapter 11 really got me thinking:
The overall importance of capital today […] is not very different from what it was in the eighteenth century. Only its form has changed: capital was once mainly land but is now industrial, financial and real estate.
One of my main intuitions about the coming changes is that “information” will become more important than industrial, financial and real estate assets. Or put differently “information” will be the capital of the 21st century and beyond.
This isn’t very well thought out at all yet but it is tantalizing because unlike land, machines, money or buildings information is non-rival. You and I can’t simultaneously farm the same plot of land. We can’t simultaneously use the same machine or occupy the same home or office. We can’t simultaneously spend the same dollar to buy something. But we can simultaneously access and make use of the same information.
It is not that there wasn’t information historically. It is just that its volume paled compared to what we have today stored in digital format making duplication and access free on the margin. There is some controversy over just how much information production has increased but among other things we know that every minute over 100 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube. And millions of people write blog posts such as the one you are reading (or upload songs to Soundcloud, or stories to Wattpad). And so on.
This raises some interesting possibilities. First and foremost among them is that we can overcome many of the issues of wealth and income inequality that I have been writing so much about recently by investing heavily in the information commons. One great example of that came to my attention yesterday thanks to a link Andy posted to usv.com about Open Source Seeds.
I will likely be writing more about the implications of “information capital” in the coming days as I just decided that this will be the topic for my talk at DLD NY next week.
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