The Fifth Fundamental Force of the Universe

07:21 Tuesday, 19 May 2026
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Words: 611

Is irony.

While I was eating my breakfast, I tried to catch up on the blogs I follow. I didn't get far, because one of the first ones was this one from Charlie Stross. It was another one of those record-scratch moments when you just can't go on because of the discontinuity.

Possibly my worst miss is that I completely discounted the profound social impact of LLMs (or so-called "AI"), not simply as a massive technology sector investment bubble and happy hunting ground for snake oil salesmen and grifters, but as a corrosive influence on population-level critical thinking. I should have seen it coming--I read Joseph Weizenbaum's Computer Power and Human Reason back in the 1980s--but I didn't recognize just how unable to see past the ELIZA illusion most people would prove to be.

I'm ok with the AI/LLM bias, he's an author and I'm pretty sure they all feel as though they've been victimized/violated by the AI companies; and they probably have a point of some kind, though I don't think it's of the magnitude they all seem to think it is.

No, it was the "corrosive influence on population-level critical thinking," that made me drop my fork.

What the fuck is "population-level critical thinking"? Is it just an inarticulate, unfortunate construction? Does he believe that "populations" possess "critical thinking" abilities? Does he think everyone in a population possesses critical thinking abilities? Really?

If populations had critical thinking abilities of some kind, would we even be where we are today?

This kind of sweeping assertion makes me question the "critical thinking" abilities of the author!

Ironic, ain't it?

Didn't the study of economics rely on the idea of the "rational man," or "rational actor"? Is that still a thing? I hope not.

I was listening to a podcast about hydronic heating and cooling on my trip down to Pennsylvania. One of the speakers made a point that I hadn't really thought about before, though it's similar to one made in other contexts.

He offered something to the effect that people will "do their research," intensely study all the specifications of their prospective car purchase (or any consumer purchase that probably has some identity significance), but when it comes to the equipment and features of a home that maintain the indoor environment, the place where they live, eat, sleep and breathe, they know nothing. All they know is that they want to be warm, or they want to be cool.

Rational actors. Critical thinkers.

Whatever cognitive abilities they possessed were hijacked by cultural cues and marketing messages at birth.

This notion of "critical thinking" as an ability inherent in any individual is a fantasy. A conceit.

It's bullshit.

It's a skill. Like playing the piano. (I hasten to add that you can be very skilled in any number of disciplines, and still lack critical thinking ability.) It takes training. It takes practice. It requires resources. It's demanding. It's hard.

And almost nobody does it.

All this pearl-clutching about our diminishing "critical thinking abilities" in the wake of AI/LLMs is baseless.

Let's make "critical thinking" a skill that we want everyone to master at some level, like literacy, and then we can talk. It's not even a social or cultural priority. Most people, like Charlie, just seem to assume everyone has it! They don't. Maybe it would be nice if they did, because maybe then we wouldn't have elected Donald Trump the first time.

Anyway, become the change you wish to see in the world.

Or something.

The beat that can be counted is not the beat, but it goes on...

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