The Daily Planet #12: Machinic Civilization

Let me start this update with a quote from Arthur Burks' Technical Report on

"VON NEUMANN'S SELF-REPRODUCING AUTOMATA" - the Capitalization is his, not mine.

Arthur Burks was on the team that built ENIAC, the first working computer.

"The late John von Neumann once pointed out that, in the past, science has dealt mainly with problems of energy, power, force and motion.

He predicted that in the future science would be much more concerned with problems of control, programming, information processing, communication, organization, and systems."

Ain't that the truth!

The technosphere is the result of this future science coming to fruition, for better or worse. Today's Daily Planet is a link to a (relatively new) book by Robert Skidelsky on our machinic civilization, which is another way to label the technosphere.

Robert Skidelsky’s Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence explores the profound transformation of human life within what he calls a “machine civilization.” Unlike earlier eras when machines were tools external to human existence, today’s technologies shape how we think, work, and relate, embedding us within complex technical systems that operate indifferent to human values.

The book addresses the darker realities of our digital age: the erosion of democracy, the rise of surveillance capitalism, and the manipulation embedded in online platforms. Skidelsky situates contemporary anxieties about AI—ranging from fears of job loss to apocalyptic scenarios—in a broader cultural and historical context, revealing them as modern myths reflecting our unease with losing control over the machines we have created and ends with urging us toward a deeper understanding of what it means to be human in an age dominated by machines.

Link to the LARB review of Skidelsky's book below:

Mindless Machines, Mindless Myths | Los Angeles Review of Books

Erik J. Larson thinks about “Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” which traces Robert Skidelsky’s philosophical reckoning with AI, automation, and the illusion of progress.