10 Things (I Think) I Think About the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

Untested Hypothesis #5: What used to be called the “Graphical User Interface”²⁷ is now called “AI.”

Factoid: I’m sure this is, technically, an utterly ludicrous and patently false assertion.

Therefore: don’t @ me, [tech] bro. I’ve already said I’m a poet. I’m no computer scientist.

It’s all about the interface, though. We’ve progressed from code to text to GUIs to AI — ever more inclusive forms of interaction with a specific form or expression of “intelligence.” It’s a computational intelligence — what educational psychologist Howard Gardner²⁸ might categorize as “Logical-Mathematical” intelligence and “Linguistic-Verbal” intelligence — one of nine (or so) forms of intelligence²⁹ he articulates in his influential book Frames of Mind.³⁰ In other words, those intelligences that are traditionally measured in school. I would argue that, as we have progressed into the more “inclusive” forms of interaction with this computational power, we are folding in more of Gardner’s “intelligences” into that experience. So that the interface is more holistic, has more depth, and “feels” more authentic, interpersonal, and interactive. That is (probably) what makes it more navigable, more efficient, and more usable.

Sidebar: the work of Steven Johnson³¹ informs my assumptions here. Specifically, I’m recalling my “interface” with his book Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate.³² As with Gilbert’s TED-talk on “genius,” it must be noted that Johnson’s book is ancient in tech terms: it was published in 1999. The last century! Johnson, too, looks into the past (e.g., Victorian novels, early cinema, medieval urban planning) for the GUI’s evolutionary roots and — like Gilbert — suggests that contemporary understanding of culture as we know it is sort of myopic.      

NEXT: Untested Hypothesis #6: AI Hallucination is a key to something.