I’m going to be honest with you guys: I’m genuinely starting to worry about where we’re going with AI and technology more generally. Not in the existential-risk-if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies kind of way,1 but because LLMs and generative models (as well as the internet, tech consolidation, and social media, and populism) are removing the walls and barriers that naturally slow humans down.
Technology is destroying friction faster than we can adapt.
Friction is an important force. Friction or resistance keeps our worst impulses in check. Friction helps keeps very human flashes of anger and frustration from cascading into catastrophic and permanent consequences.
Carl von Clausewitz famously recognized the power of friction in war. The best laid plans of generals could still come unraveled when faced with the uncertainty, complexities, and difficulties of getting dudes with guns to successfully kill one another. That’s friction.
Take for example a common case: some AH cuts you off in traffic.
When I used to drive, this happened a lot. A total jerk would carelessly nearly crash into me, and I’d experience white hot rage for like five minutes, while my cortisol spiked and made me angry. I’d shout in the car, maybe flip them off, and stew in my rage. But I never proceeded beyond that, because ugh. Effort. I don’t have anything I could do to get back at them. The law would not be on my side, there’d be a court case, I’d probably get my license revoked, and usually I had somewhere I needed to be.
Friction (physical, legal, societal, temporal) stopped me from doing something really stupid.
Or here’s another example: Someone insults you you on the internet. Sure, you might really want to get back at them for being an insulting prick online. But how? Insulting them back rarely provides the dopamine hit we hope it will, because unless you’re famous or really witty, nobody really gives a shit. Also, it takes energy and aforementioned wit to come up with the kinds of banger insults that will go viral. And someone might decide you’re actually the asshole, which would suck.
That’s friction imposed on us by living in society. There’s a fine line between bringing a brilliant clapback and just looking like a whiner online.
And there’s still other types of friction:
Competency friction (no matter how much I’d like to, I’m probably not cut out to be a professional athlete at anything)
Physical friction (as awesome and gratifying as it would be for the country, I will never be able to get past a line of Secret Service dudes all built like Reacher and punch Trumpoleon in the face)
Moral friction (maybe it’s God/higher power/honor/decency)
Temporal friction (fomenting action from rage usually takes time, planning & energy)
Last night, I watched a clip where Hank Green went apoplectic over Sora2. It was fun to watch, and I sympathize with him, but I stopped laughing when he said “OpenAI launched a lawsuit-magnet into the world,” he said. “The friction matters.”
He’s right, but also wrong. I’m not even sure that a lawsuit will stop Sam Altman at this point. LLMs are making it far too easy for people to do terrible things, and there are only so many lawyers in the world to take on mega billionaires and individual tech companies that are worth more than entire industries or countries.
We’re speed-running into a scenario where friction, resistance, and barriers to entry are eroding faster than we can adapt. Where everyone’s id and darker impulses are increasingly unchecked. Whether it’s generating fake, but entirely plausible election misinformation, writing malware, committing sextortion, privacy harms, all-encompassing surveillance … it’s so much easier to do all these terrible things now with LLMs and genAI, and the internet and consolidated databases, and ubiquitous facial recognition everywhere, and social media, and XR glasses, and, and, and … I suspect that’s in no small part due to all this tech working independently and together to erode constraints.
Being a dick used to be costly — in time, energy, competency, currency — and now, it’s increasingly less so.
Of course, this weakening of friction isn’t only because of technology — the erosion of norms, democratic values, the rule of law, and well, consequences certainly aren’t helping to pump the brakes on this Katamari Damacy-esque roll we’re on.
Also, I can’t stop thinking about how the plot of Mountainhead seems less and less fictional by the day.
Let’s be honest: we’re far more likely to kill ourselves through self-inflicted wounds like environmental collapse, political instability, Trump launching a nuke, war, etc.