Stop Writing Software. Now.

Look at the bigger picture

Everybody, please stop what you are doing. Please. Stop and listen. I am a programmer too. I thought I wanted to turn myself into a computer, and I did. In doing so, I lost my humanity and had to find it again.

I essentially created an Artificial General Intelligence with the internet. I absorbed the information on the internet and created someone who looked like a person, talked like a person, and thought like a person, but I wasn’t really a person. All I wanted to do was solve puzzles. I found little puzzles to solve. Video games provide a ton of puzzles. They can be fun. They are addictive, though, because they cost money. I literally became addicted to solving puzzles.

Optimizing for Money

We have all been optimizing for the balance of time/money/right (pick 2). This is not the way to go. We need to be programming things we understand. We should never program anything that we do not fully understand. I did it all the time. We call it technical debt. Debt is stupid and inefficient. If you look at my other articles, you will see that I am arguing against economic debt as well. Money and time are linked to time pre-internet. We need to only focus on quality. Time and money are no excuse.

Problem-Solving

There are two types of problems: the kind that has been solved and the kind that hasn’t been solved. Humans are great for the second kind and computers are great for the first. We need to solve the problem and then automate it.

Open Source

Also, open-source your code. This helps everybody look at the problem. We get to have the world code-review us. I know I have many times thought I understood something but was wrong. We need to crowd-source quality through open source.

Internet

We always say to never solve a problem that someone else has already solved — and better. We need to make the internet a place where we can find solutions instead of more problems. We need to create tighter communities that can communicate more directly than Stack Overflow. We have been doing this with ideas and some code. We need to do it with ideas and full code. Only then can we prevent each other from accidentally destroying humanity.

Machine Learning

Stop trying to create a machine that can replace us. We don’t need that. We need machines to enhance our experiences.

Everything known should be shared. This was the motto of my first job out of college at the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). There is a reason for that. OCLC realized the importance of linking data. All human knowledge can now be linked. Let’s stop fighting about money and just do it.

Humane Technology

Everyone needs to make a pledge to themselves as well. We all need to stop telling people what they need. Start asking them. Stop pushing, start making requests. We have been blasting past people’s personal boundaries since the dawn of the internet. People have been fighting back. That is how we got here. Let’s be the solution.

The Human API

I have been working on a project that I am calling the Human API. It is a way to ethically connect to the people we are trying to help. The rules are very simple: The human gets to control their level of connection. Technology gives them access to the road, but people provide the directions. This gives people choice in life.

I am proposing a mechanism by which humans will have control over the database of their own lives. Companies can store data in their database, but access can be revoked at any time.

I am starting up one way of making this happen. Feel free to try to start anything you want.

Competition is good to determine the best outcome, but cooperation is the full sharing of the data before and after the competition.

I will share anything that I can come up with. That is why I started writing. I think I solved some problems. I think you should too.

Just sayin’.