Late September. Florin watches a two-hour conversation between Jensen Huang, Bill Gurley, and Brad Gerstner and pauses on a single sentence: "General-purpose computing is over." Not a technical claim but an inflection point. The same shift that happened when electricity stopped powering motion and started powering light is happening again: energy is now being converted into cognitive production at industrial scale. Chapter 6 asks what that means for access, for power, for how a child at thirteen learns to ask a question, and whether the dominant tool being built amplifies human capacity or makes it unnecessary.
"Turning energy into tokens of thought. One watt that in 1881 lit a bulb, by 2025 generates a structured paragraph."
"The cyclist arrives transformed. The driver arrives transported. The question is whether we are designing systems that strengthen thinking, or systems that make it unnecessary."
"Infrastructure, over time, became invisible. And the invisible, when it supports everything else, is where power stops being questioned."
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1
Jensen Huang, Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner — Full Conversation (2024)
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2
Nikola Tesla, Wardenclyffe Tower and J. P. Morgan
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3
Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (1979)
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4
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near (2005)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: BICYCLE OR CAR?