A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

~ Herbert Simon.

There is a prescient quality to the words above made in 1971, made by a pioneering figure in cognitive sciences and artificial intelligence.

It is not new news that our attention is up for grabs.

Listen to Joe Rogan’s calling out the potential “massive distraction” of AR glasses, while Mark Zuckerberg actually thinks it’s a good idea.

What is an Algorithm?

Cathy O’ Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction describes algorithms as using historical information to make predictions.

If our future is asymmetrically left to people who owns the code, we are going to get a world that is designed for people who shaped Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and the like.

Joe Rogan’s response should also be our responses: Why should we let our attention be stolen, every day, every other minute?

But there is a greater worry. The warning we must take heed is not only that our attention and time is lost. More insidiously, our intentions are getting thwarted and pushed to the wayside.