The Wobble

Notes from the seam between new technology and the old structures of knowing.

I’ve worked in academic psychology and philosophy for over a decade now. The branch of psychology where I live is social psychology: how do our communities shape our minds and how does that shape what we do together? The areas of philosophy I love are epistemology: how do we know what we know? and philosophy of science: how have we figured out how to know stuff together?

My current work is building computational models, which has put me on the edge of new developments in AI. So I’m watching as this new tech, one of the most powerful information processing tools I’ve ever seen, crashes into the structures I’ve spent the past decade studying: the mind and the institutions we’ve built up around it.

We’ve already seen how algorithmic tech has changed the flow of information, which in turn has changed our communities, and institutions. So I understand the panic some people feel as they look towards the AI-shaped future. I also regularly use these tools in my work, so I also understand the optimism that’s sold alongside these tools

The first mistakes instability for catastrophe. The second assumes the problem is in your head, when it's mostly in the infrastructure..

But I think the honest answer is that we just don’t know how this is going to turn out. So this blog is my attempt to report on what I’m seeing and to think clearly about it while it’s still legible.

Who writes this?

I'm Jonathan Morgan. I have a PhD in psychology and philosophy and work as a senior researcher at Just Horizons Alliance designing computational tools to help communities make better decisions. You can find more at jonathanrossmorgan.com.