And you still think everything that’s unproven (yet) or can’t be touch is a phantasy. How it is possible? The era of information we’re living now - is not physical anymore. Physical layer is the base layer. We’re far more away from it.
This year I was repairing a garage and this was truly physical effort. And while doing repetitive and mostly boring movements I was thinking a lot. About how different physical world is comparing to the ephemeral informational world. And here are the outcomes I learned.
For this article I will be comparing how things are happening in constructions vs software development, but there are much more examples of physical vs non-physical jobs.
The costs of the mistake
First and important. I was observing my grandparents until they passed. Now I observe my parents, who are much more closer, but still very far away from my attitude. Next generation seems to be even more relaxed if mistake happens.
Many times I have touched entropy - the process of dissolving, absorbing anything that was created, invented or built until it fades away completely. In terms of software development this is a garbage collector. Something, that is not fed with energy, maintained is assumed to be redundant. So it’s degrade to create a space for something new.
In physical world degradation is the only way to actually get rid of anything materialistic. Disassembling, re-using and re-building is not exactly the same. It is rather repurpose and re-shape of materials. Materials that keep their parameters close to the initial values.
And the cost of the mistake is quite high when game has to follow these rules. With limited materials and limited amount of time making wrong choice may lead to wrong results and causing wasting the precious resources.
When previous generations learned that from their ancestors and experienced these rules for their entire life - it formed a specific mindset. Mindset of being serious, mindset of avoiding mistakes at all cost. Mindset of being afraid of mistakes.
In modern life everything is easy - once hardware is working fine - we can delete a file and immediately download another copy at almost no cost. We can copy the same information over and over avoinding any addition costs.
As software developer I have made thousands of mistakes, I have built entire systems that might be already collapsed, but still could be launched within a minutes or hours. The mistakes in this field has rather non to extremely low costs in most of the cases. And once these mistakes have been made - user space becomes even more safe. And users can make their mistakes endlessly, until they are gone too far and purposely destroying every single copy of the information.
Young generation knows there is always back button. Restore. Cancel. Resubscribe. Reschedule. Everything is re-doable. This removes the limitations of the mistakes. And elder generations wonder - why these people prefer to take a longer nap and miss the work?
Effort that does not exist
When I was repairing a floor and walls in the garage - it was there and it is still there. It does not depend on the time of the year, time, weather or other circumstances. It is stable and I hope it will serve for a few decades at least. But the cost of the mistake is higher. Whatever could be done better - stays this way.
I have no bigger choice - accept imperfection or re-do effort from the ground. Additionally I have to put extra effort to destroy what I have built. And it won’t be easy.
On the other hand my daily work for many years consistent of moving piece of information. Creating flows, modules that process, display, reads, stores and visualizes the information. And the cost of the mistake can be kept very, very low. Negligeble, almost zero.
What is the value of this entire effort the day when batteries are empty and electricity is gone? It’s there as well - it’s zero. Undoubtedly we are influence by approaches borrowed from other industries and areas and adapt these for the information systems and programming. By adapting and executing we are learning ofcourse. In reality for many people it is a byproduct of doing the things.
Nevertheless, even we bring our entire experience 200 years ago, when there were no machines and electricity - it is worth nothing, until be built all those machines.
The layers
With these examples I am trying to show how we’ve been working for centuries to build a physical, that’s hard to build the right way. This unlocked a potential of building ephemeral world, world of information, that’s so easy to create and destroy.
Now we are finally reached another dimension of the information era. Yes, I am touching AI here a bit. Because AI is the answer to our question how to manage all that information we have gathered.
Once talking to my parents I found a great analogy how to explain AI chat interface. I remember I said to my father this.
“Imagine you go to the library. There is an old man sitting in the library for a long time. Long enough to read all the books, articles, notes. Everything. And it was long enough to not being actually normal. After all if you read everything - it is probably hard to be even close to “normal”. And now remember - every time you go to the AI with a question - you’re actually asking that librarian. Who is old enough to misunderstand and mishear. Who has read enough to become a bit “crazy” and mix things up. Who’s never experienced life outside of the library, so he never saw a Sun, never took a walk, never drank a coffee. But he read everything about people doing it.”
I saw how accurate and easy to understand for the father it was. A perfect analogy. And now I’m sharing it hear and I hope it will serve you as well. And next time, when you ask it for an important advice - remember, it has never been in your place and felt what you feel.
And getting back to the main topic now. We are building ephemeral layers on top of each other. Everything is still based on real, physical layer. But live happens in chats, through smartphones, cameras. People born and die in physical world. We live in cyber world. That is real despite it never existed.
And you don’t believe there is God, energy flows around us and we are more than 80 years of experiencing this “reality”.