The Age of Entanglement
Why humans should think about technology the way field biologists examine the living world
Hundreds of thousands of air travelers were delayed by a major, system-wide network outage at Delta on Monday morning, a problem that’s becoming increasingly common in a world run by interconnected and aging computer systems.
.. Such large-scale technological failures aren’t just massively inconvenient, they’re potentially dangerous, especially as machines increasingly handle crucial operations across a variety of industries. Complex systems are redefining the ways in which humans think about and interact with technology, a dramatic shift in perspective that poses its own risks. That’s the argument at the heart of Samuel Arbesmn’s new book, Overcomplicated.
.. Arbesman is not saying you need to dismantle your iPhone and build it from scratch, or only use apps that you created yourself. (Although, hey, if that’s your thing, great.) But he is saying that active curiosity—and a certain degree of futzing with the technological systems we encounter—is culturally overdue.