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Depending on your outlook, here’s some good or bad news: the future is irreducible. What I mean is that the future is, in an essential way, unknowable. It cannot be reduced to algorithmic understanding or predictive models.

You and I, will, on some level, always be guessing. We don’t have all the variables, we never will, and even if we did, the future will be irreconcilable from the present, and especially from the past.

Peering forward

Humanity has a long history of searching for an oracle. We are a collectively curious, but anxious species.

Religiously, we’ve looked for telltale signs, prophesies or omens. Scientifically, from the dizzying matrix of existence, we’ve strung out threads of knowledge. And some of these are even powerfully predictive (e.g. movement of celestial bodies).

Despite this progress, the vast future across all domains remains, in the truest sense, unknowable. Why? There is irreducible uncertainty in systems that can only be modeled probabilistically.

Physical systems

In the physical world we have to deal with a hazy cloud of possible outcomes all the time. Weather systems are a prominent example.

Despite knowing how these systems work on a physical level, their behavior is nonlinear and is very, very sensitive to initial conditions. We can work on the reducible uncertainty portion of this problem, i.e. add more sensors, collect more data points in the atmosphere, the oceans, etc.

This helps us better understand the initial conditions, and helps predict what will happen in the near future with a little more confidence. However, the uncertainty compounds exponentially the farther you move away from those initial conditions, quickly dissolving confidence in our predictions.

Computers

There are many systems that don’t behave nearly as chaotically as weather, yet remain subject to irreducible uncertainty. The computer is one of those systems. It is an unbelievably reliable invention.

We can almost always predict that the computer will do what we tell it to do. Yet, on its most essential level, at the bitwise operator, a computer can be affected by chaotic natural phenomena.

The typical way a computer stores bits is with a transistor gate, marking the presence or absence of voltage as a 1 or 0, respectively. If rogue electrons flow through this gate, they could unexpectedly flip the bit from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. Too much heat or faulty hardware can cause such an error, known as a bit-flip.

But so can the magnetic field created as cosmic rays hit the transistor. Because outer space is awash in cosmic radiation (and other risk factors), spaceships minimize risk with redundancy in their physical computer systems, sometimes employing 5 computers.

If there’s a discrepancy in the expected output at any given time, the computers tally what their outputs are showing, and proceed with majority agreement.

While the frequency of these cosmic rays can be modeled probabilistically, the observer remains fogged in a gray area of uncertainty. We’ll never know exactly when one of these randomly occuring events will actually occur.

So even for our most robust input/output machine, operating on a millisecond-into-the-future time scale, we cannot be 100% certain it will provide us with the future outcome we predict / expect. Wild.

Moving forward

Sometimes, it can feel like we’re gaining immense amounts of knowledge, so much so that the future is in our grasp. While we’ve absolutely made progress peering a little ahead, it’s important to recognize that any prediction is wrapped in uncertainty.

It can be humbling to realize this, but ultimately it’s also the source of our freedom, our ability to stray from predetermined lines and squiggle our own paths into the future.

References

1. Stephen Wolfram’s interesting take on the phenomenon of free will and how it relates to computational irreducibility

2. Vinod Wadhawan’s blog discussing natural phenomena and Laplace’s demon

We’ve turned to the forests for centuries to explain ourselves. Sometimes a place of nostalgia (Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey), of estrangement (Dante’s selva oscura), of refuge (Robin Hood’s Sherwood), this natural metaphor repeatedly finds new life.1

Our present century brought the massive expansion of the internet, for better or worse. In order to grapple with its prominence, people have, unsurprisingly, looked to the trees for understanding.

The dark forest theory

Perhaps in the early years, the online world grew organically from individual gardens and seedlings into a forest with enough light, variety and space to enjoy a walk in the woods.

People tended to their plants and trees with care and sincerity. They placed personal interests and hobbies out there and people began to find unexpected community. Though there was always sketchy activity, these dangerous trails were easier to avoid.

Soon after the people, however, came the money. It was clever. It was voracious. And it has devoured us. Nowadays, to move through the open internet is to be monetized or scammed.

There’s a rot in this aging forest, parasitic growth choking the trees, threats lurking. The trails are overgrown, full of sticker weeds, thieves, traps and poisonous vines. We’ve entered the darkest age of Mirkwood.

This transformation is at the core of Yancey Strickler’s Dark Forest Theory of the internet.2 The invasion of ads, data collection, dark patterns, harassment, negativity-driven engagement and bad actors has become so overwhelming that we don’t even want to make a sound, lest we draw public, destructive attention to ourselves.

It’s no wonder we’ve retreated underground to more private spaces, to Venkatesh Rao’s cozy web (messaging apps, Discord, Slack, email, etc.).

Extending the metaphor

Maggie Appleton builds on this theory by describing how generative algorithmic content may send the digital world into utter chaos. We now have Rogue Johnny Appleseed and his many clones planting a practical infinity of LLM-driven, derivative trees.

The forest was already vast and darkening. Now it will likely become even more immense and treacherous. If a core purpose of going online is to connect with other humans, that’s about to become much more difficult.

In response, it’s tempting to fully disconnect or abandon the online world. I think this will / should happen to some degree and doing so will probably benefit many people (e.g. by eliminating doomscrolling, etc.).

If you want to trade metaphorical trees for natural trees, you’ll find no argument here. I cherish every visit to the forest and every climb into the canopy. I know how it heals and refreshes me.

What’s at stake

If you want to stay online in any capacity, I believe cultivating a human-centric online experience is essential. There are many possible solutions that Maggie provides to help us navigate this new reality and prove our humanity online (reverse Turing test).

I especially like her recommendations to be as original as possible and to play with unique language/expression. Though I know these aren’t strict safeguards, I find a lot of promise there.

It’ll be tricky, but if we unknowingly lose ourselves in a thicket of LLMs, I’d find that rather tragic.

I care about the triumphs, ramblings, learnings and misadventures of humanity, not the muddled, plagiarized, probabilistic output of algorithms.

Genuine human intelligence

The ongoing transformation is partly why I’ve started this website and why I’m writing a little. I’ve been a huge beneficiary of all types of human-produced content both online and offline. I’ve learned countless things from people and their blogs / courses / code, but I’ve mostly been a passive consumer.

Maybe now, disappointed by the coming changes, I want to actively contribute to a humanist vision of the internet. LLMs and other types of algorithms / statistics can and will play an enormous part in our future.

I just don’t want these tools to obscure our reality or distract us from original human thought and experience. I want to participate in a public exchange of ideas, and help maintain a network of genuine human intelligence.

Reviving the forest

People often say “you don’t want to miss the forest for the trees.” In other words, don’t get so caught up in the details that you lose track of the big picture. In this case, the big picture is a bit of a mess. But it can be cleaned up.

I believe this online moment requires immense focus on the trees, one-by-one, in order to salvage the forest. We can make a home again in the woods. It’ll take a sort of inversion, a fresh return to the nostalgic roots of the internet.

This is the start of my contribution to that endeavor, a hope to create lively new growth. And to connect with others trying to do the same.

References

1. Forests: The Shadow of Civilization by Robert Pogue Harrison – a review of the forest as metaphor in Western thought

2. I found out about these ideas through Maggie Appleton’s awesome website – she’s a big advocate of creating your own online garden, and I gotta say, it’s been fun starting one up