The Techno-Wisdom Codec Has a Bug In It

It was the psychiatrist, Carl Jung, that cautioned us all about the perils of embracing “unearned wisdom”. Put simply, acting on wisdom obtained without supporting knowledge or experience can lead us down a path entirely inconsistent with the genuine intentions encapsulated by the original wisdom. The reason for this is interesting and merits closer examination.

Wisdom is a distillation of human experience – a compression if you will. The trouble with compression is that it tends to be (I might even suggest that it needs to be) lossy. Frequently packaged as sound bites or concise narratives, wisdom’s brevity renders it portable, persist-able, and repeatable. In this form, it can move easily through time and space and serve as a useful tool for those that are able to absorb and implement it. However, because this short-form representation is not a perfect replica of the original wisdom, of the original human experience, its use leaves ample room for misinterpretation and potential exploitation.

If the distillation of human experience into wisdom can be likened to compression, then the interpretation and implementation of wisdom is akin to decompression. When compression is lossy, the decompression will not perfectly restore the original content. The decompression necessarily takes liberties, extrapolations, to fill in the gaps. Humans’ typical adaptation to this is to reject wisdom until it is understood – though they may not know that’s what they are doing while they are doing it. However, this discernment is not always present.

Unearned Wisdom of the Tech Sector

As the technology sector, particularly the data subsector, has undergone rapid evolution, distillations of knowledge and wisdom have permeated out into broader society. This development is undeniably beneficial as it provides a roadmap for digital transformation to the rest of us “normies”. However, this also presents us with a very real problem. Because the distilled form of the knowledge, the wisdom, likely wasn’t earned by those that are wielding it, it is open to counterproductive misinterpretation and misuse. I spoke about this concern at the RVA Tech Data Summit in 2022 (yes, I know, ancient times by modern standards). I’ve been sitting on this content, waiting for the opportune moment to reintroduce it in this format.

Let’s Make Up Some Words Together

Giving something a name gives us power over it. So, I want to create a term for this phenomenon so I can write and talk about it more clearly. Fortunately, I think I know where to start.

In undergrad, my freshman year roommate became enamored with the word “modem” once he learned its meaning. For most people, its just the box that the “damn cable company forces [them] to rent” so they can have internet access at their house. However, its really a portmanteau of the two words that perfectly describe its function: modulator-demodulator. This essentially means that its the bi-directional translation between the language of the analog signal produced and distributed by the cable company and the language of the digital signal utilized by your internet router. A good name can go a long way to enabling discussion of a nuanced idea or concept and “modem” was certainly an example of that for my roommate.

For this post, we aren’t going to translate wisdom between languages (which would certainly incur its own form of losses). We are, however, going to observe and comment on the process of the creation, dissemination, and implementation of wisdom which we can think of analogously as a compression – decompression cycle. And just like “modem”, we have a handy portmanteau we can use here as well. “Codec” stands for coder-decoder but is also used to describe the compression and decompression of information into a portable format that can be used by a piece of software. In order to have a single word that describes the human experience compression – decompression cycle, we’re going to borrow this interesting term, if for no other reason than it sounds cool.

So, if “wisdom” is the portable version of the information, we can call the compression-decompression cycle as the “wisdom codec”. Now, since we’re specifically focusing the discussion on the transfer of knowledge and wisdom from the tech sector, we can add an adjective to more precisely hone in on the concept. For this, we’ll use the “techno-” prefix to then create the “techno-wisdom codec”. So when we say “techno-wisdom codec” we’re referring to the mechanisms that compress wisdom from the tech-sector and decompress it for use in another sector.

Improper Use of the Wisdom Codec

At first glance, we may feel that the need to compress human knowledge and experience into human wisdom before decompressing it back into human action is a shortcoming of the human race or even the universe itself. However, I believe there is a strong argument to be made that the wisdom codec, while born of necessity and the limitations of the human condition, is actually a tremendous accomplishment and, in many ways, is more of a feature than a bug. Sure, there are many exceptions. Otherwise there would be no need to warn us about unearned wisdom. But, for the most part, our minds and our culture are well adapted to this phenomenon more broadly speaking. By the very nature of human perception, we have to navigate and reason through abstractions. We therefore natively know how to navigate a world with a general purpose wisdom codec.

Part of the way that we address this is that we recognize the need for additional information to be present in the decoding/decompressing process by default. For instance, even the truism of “be kind to others” requires a nuanced interpretation influenced by experiential decompression. Our wisdom codec knows to call out for more information. Sometimes this can be sought through study and analysis. Many other times, though, it has to be sought through experience – by decompressing the wisdom over multiple life events such that you develop a mapping between your experience with your understanding of the wisdom. Naturally, one of the primary compromises between these two strategies is the use of narrative. More on that another time.

Unearned wisdom is compressed wisdom. To act on unearned wisdom requires a disregard for or the malfunction of the decompression module of the wisdom codec.

The Flaw of the Techno-Wisdom Codec

The flaw of the techno-wisdom codec is that the parts of the algorithm that may otherwise call for and integrate additional information to accompany decompression are suppressed or otherwise compromised in some way. This has all of the hallmarks of the use and abuse of unearned wisdom. Essentially, there is a bug in the techno-wisdom codec. But why?

Techno-wisdom usually makes great soundbites and great (executive) sales pitches. But because of the contemporary cultural and economic significance of the tech-sector, many of its conceptual exports are put on a pseudo-religious pedestal resulting in rapid, dogmatic adoption. Under these conditions, no “religious scholars” nor “religious followers” are taking the time to understand the imported wisdom and learn its true applicability to other domains or situations.

Furthermore, many alternative incentive structures arise to shift behavior away from the correct objective function. In my perspective, these usually involve some time of conferred or signaled status.

Practical Implications

Well, does the bug in the techno-wisdom codec have any real-world effects? Why, yes! In many ways, it translates into false innovations, wasted efforts, and ultimately, lost opportunity cost. In other ways, it translates into existential questions for humanity.

Let’s start with something more bite-sized.

Over the last half-decade or so, but particularly in the last couple of years, I have grown deeply frustrated with several “behaviors” in the space I work in. I say behaviors because calling them “trends” would give them too much respect. As far as I can tell, they are all direct results of the codec bug we’ve been discussing.

Essentially, there are three behaviors sins that I not only encounter frequently but also have to push back against for the sake of our true objectives. They are:

• The arbitrary centralization of data and data systems. You may have heard this is as the trope “We need one place for all of our data!”
• The premature investment in data quality and data governance. You may have also heard the bureaucratic cry of “We can’t work with our data until we have better governance!”
• The zealot-like fervor commanded by artificial intelligence as a panacea solution. You may have been sold by the “transformational power of AI for your business”, or that “AI is the future!”

You may already think that one or more of these claims are a good idea. You may think that all data must be brought together. You may think nothing can happen without governance programs and superior data quality. You may also think that data and artificial intelligence are synonymous. Well, if that is the case, shame on you.

As mentioned before, the trouble with these three examples of techno-wisdom is that they make great executive soundbites. Compoundingly troublesome is that they aren’t 100% wrong. There is truth in each of them, yet it can be elusive. But the sliver of truth makes them doubly intoxicating as guiding principles. Yet without the deeper understanding, each of these technology sins can send us down a rabbit hole that will cost us a tremendous amount with little to no return – a false sacrifice.

Perhaps you’re like me and are a “skeptic” of this new religion. Perhaps you’ve seen how this can lead to scenarios where we end up serving the ideas instead of the ideas serving us. I certainly have. It makes you think twice about the religious aspect, doesn’t it?

Now, let’s say you do agree with me – we’re still not in the clear yet. I estimate that the common knee-jerk diagnosis would be those that favor these ideas simply lack the appropriate technical knowledge. However, there is a deeper issue at play and it is, in fact, the downstream effects of the bug in our tech-wisdom codec.

The net effects will vary from industry to industry both in terms of the direct impact and its downstream consequences. The gap between the electric utility sector and the tech-sector is profound, opening up more opportunity for misinterpretation and the consequences of lost opportunity during this period of immense transformation are tremendous.

Sidebar: About This Post and Blog-chain

My intent for this post is to serve as an introduction to a longer blog-chain of at least three more posts, one for each of the sins. My aim is to explore these three sins in much more detail in the later posts as examples of how the techno-wisdom codec fails us – hopefully offering up the missing “extra” information that the codec has suppressed. However, there is a greater reason for separating this first post from the other three. I want to use this post to lay some conceptual groundwork for many other ideas I’ve captured on my backlog but haven’t put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper on yet.

Practical Implications: The Existential

In the field of artificial intelligence, there is a concept frequently referred to as “explainability”. For those that aren’t aware of this, what you need to know is that, put plainly, unless otherwise designed, an AI model is a black-box system. It can give you an answer to a question or a problem but most likely that’s all you’re getting. Explainability aims to address this shortcoming.

A superficial argument against explainability might arise, “You drive your car without knowing how it works. You ride in a plane without knowing how it works. So, you don’t need to know how the AI box works to use it, do you?!”

Now, the retort to this argument should go something like this: “Yes, I don’t know how the plane works but the pilot, the manufacturer, and the airline (at least in concert) certainly do!”

You should also fold in: “The airplane isn’t telling me how to act. It’s only safely carrying me to my destination.”

And there’s the rub. When I receive wisdom from another human or human system, in essence it’s telling me how to act. That wisdom has been compressed and distilled and transmitted to me. In order to complete the codec loop and act, I have to decompress it. What if it’s an AI system telling me to act (especially when it is providing general purpose guidance akin to what we may call wisdom)? The AI system has (supposedly) compressed “all human knowledge” and distilled it down to the soundbite it has presented me. In this situation, the compression side of our wisdom codec has now been majorly hijacked by a technological compression mechanism that we can’t observe. Now, what happens when the techno-wisdom codec bug spreads from the decompression side (as described above) to the compression side (the AI)? What happens when the existing bug morphs because we treat the output of the AI with dogmatic interpretation due to its cultural and economic significance and “awesome power”? At this point, we’d have undermined something fundamental nearly end-to-end. I think we’d have ourselves a very different kind of bug – something more akin to a virus or a pandemic.

I’m not here to argue for explainability, there are many others doing it well. I’m also wise enough (haha) to know that solving explainability doesn’t inoculate us from this supposed virus. However, explainability is a simple enough mechanism to demonstrate the concept. The trouble I foresee is that even with the greatest explainability mechanisms, we’re still tampering with our wisdom codec – a mechanism that has co-evolved alongside human perception. So, I won’t even ask the scary question directly – I’ll just let you use your imagination.

The Existential: Show Your Work

I’d like to end with a story – one that’s simplicity and familiarity should contrast nicely with the lead up of the previous section(s).

At a certain point in primary school, math reaches a stage where solving problems sometimes requires multiple steps and the teachers begin to demand that you show your work. I hated this. I hated it because I didn’t need to write down each step to be able to solve the problem and get the right answer. I wanted to add fractions and solve linear equations in my head. To be honest, I competed in math competitions where mental math and estimation exercises required that you couldn’t write anything down. So for me, the whole exercise of showing your work felt a bit tyrannical. I was always so mad at the teachers for forcing me to show my work because it slowed me down. I still got the right answer doing it my way and I understood the concepts clearly. So, I felt entitled to exclude any evidence of computation.

Now in all fairness, I grew out of this once I started doing trigonometric proofs and it actually behooved me to write down my steps. However, it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized the virtue of showing my work. The reason we have to value showing our work is that only having the answer in hand limits the usefulness of the answer. This is because the usefulness of the answer actually has nothing to do with me and everything to do with who will be consuming my work. In the case of my math teachers, they consume my homework. They can then only interact with me properly if I have shown my work. In the absence of my work, their interaction with me is binary – I either got it right or I got it wrong. Whereas if I had shown my work, they’d have had enough information about where I may have gone wrong to engage with me and teach me the error of my ways. In their eyes, they couldn’t do their job, couldn’t fulfill their purpose, if I hadn’t shown my work. Therefore, considering a math problem to be incomplete without showing the source work is a statement of how the absence of understanding is an absence of utility and purpose.

In adult life, this becomes even more pronounced. Even when people claim to just want the answer, they don’t actually want only the answer. I find they are often repulsed by the answer. I believe, to them, the answer seems incompatible with their model of the world, with their beliefs system. And as a result, they reject it. So, you can’t simply present someone with the answer and expect it to be adopted, let alone adopted correctly. In order for them to follow your lead or to even consider what you’re saying, you have to be able to guide them from their current understanding towards your understanding through a logical step-by-step guide mapped to their perception. This is true for all exchanges, both technical and non-technical. You’ve got to show your work to them so they know how you got there and can see the error in their ways. Without this depth or precision, the answer (the wisdom) is either virtually useless or potentially dangerous.

Put another way, only having the answer is insufficient because its essentially performative. I can show you how smart and talented I am, but you can’t engage with me and you can’t do anything with what you’ve seen. I hope you can see the analogy clearly.

Conclusion

Surfacing the techno-wisdom codec bug is essentially a cultural critique: our wisdom codec is fundamentally linked to human perception and we’re messing with it. The consequences will be personal, of course. But they will also affect our businesses and society. When businesses are essential institutions undergoing radical transformation, like the electric utility, we owe ourselves a cultural critique or two. It should be obvious the same is true of our civilization at large.

What I hope my closing story makes clear is that children don’t yet appreciate the wisdom codec. Am I saying that many of the people who make up the current and future techno-wisdom bug/virus are children? Yes, I kind of am. My hope, though, is that just like showing my work allowed me to continue my mathematics education, we all collectively reach a scenario where the progress (and therefore the spread of the virus) is fundamentally limited by the lack of earned wisdom – that we reach a consequential boundary that forces our hand in a simultaneously enabling yet protective way.

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