Stephen Downes

We're familiar with McLuhan's new media tetrad: what does it enhance, what does it make obsolete, what does it retrieve, what does it reverse? This article makes me think we need to add a fifth: what does it consume? And we'll apply it to all technologies, not just media. The new tech pentad? I dub it thus. This article quotes Herbert Simon: "What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." So what of AI? It creates a surplus of new software. But who will use it? How will they find it? The new scarcity, according to this article, is distribution. In a way, this is similar to Phil Hill's post from yesterday.