Technology and Agency: A Double-Edged Sword

Linus Lee (⁠⁠Website⁠⁠, ⁠⁠X⁠⁠) is a builder, engineer, and writer who explores how software can amplify our abilities, humanity, and agency. He builds, researches, and advises on AI at ⁠⁠Thrive Capital⁠⁠, a venture capital firm, and continues to write and hack on personal projects.

Previously, Linus held research or engineering roles at ⁠⁠Notion⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Betaworks⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and others, and has built over 100 personal ⁠⁠projects⁠⁠ on the side--including his own programming language and ⁠⁠most of the tools he uses day to day⁠⁠. Most of his work, writing, and projects revolve around language, knowledge work, thinking tools, machine intelligence, and latent space for creativity.

We begin with how technology can concentrate or distribute power and amplify our diminish our agency. Then he breaks down his framework around instrumental and engaged interfaces, why representation is so critical in tools, and talks through what 'tools for thought' actually means. We also discuss the state of LLM tools and how they can become more robust, as well as how latent space could be codified to help us understand more qualitative domains. This bleeds into his approach to and work at Thrive, which we discuss in detail.

Linus is attuned to the ways technology can make us more or less human, and that's reflected throughout. Technology is not determined: the future we imagine and create is entirely up to us. Will we optimize ourselves into something non-human, or dream our way into something beautiful?

Views expressed here are the interviewee's and not intended as investment advice.

Full transcript and all links are available at ⁠⁠https://dialectic.fm/linus-lee⁠⁠

Timestamps:

• (2:23): Values and Technology as an Amplifier for Agency
• (9:57): Instrumental vs. Engaged Interfaces and Tools
• (20:05): Representations, Abstraction, and Exposing Complexity
• (33:23): Dreaming of Thinking Tools, Especially Beyond Text
• (48:06): LLMs, Mechanical Thinking, and Going Beyond in How We Understand
• (57:42): Embeddings of People
• (1:01:16): Applying Rigor and an Engineering Approach to Working with LLMs
• (1:08:26): Collaborating with AI: Having Agents Work for You vs. Accelerating Your Craft
• (1:11:10): Using LLMs to Explore Latent Space
• (1:14:58): Working at Thrive: building internal tools and taking software seriously at a VC firm
• (1:28:09): What Great Engineering in an Organization Looks Like
• (1:33:50): Humanity, Aliveness, and Technology
• (1:39:41): Dreams, Aesthetics, Imagery, and Intentionally Guiding Technology
• (1:46:09): Lost to Wonder

References

• ⁠⁠What are conference talks about? - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Instrumental interfaces, engaged interfaces - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠What makes a good human interface? - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Dialectic Ep. 21: Geoffrey Litt - Software You Can Shape⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Linus Lee on Representations for MIT Media Lab Lecture⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠C. Thi Nguyen⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠The British Library⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Spatial Interfaces - John Palmer⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Prism: mapping interpretable concepts and features in a latent space of language - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Synthesizer for thought - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Liquid Art - Kate Compton⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Thoughts on Loom - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Linus on Flora⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Story of Your Life - Ted Chiang⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Arrival (2016)⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Linus's bio, culinary edition⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Goodfire AI⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Notion, AI, and Me - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Dan Shipper⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Every⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Philip Wadler⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Create things that come alive - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠A Rant about "Technology" - Ursula Le Guin⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Radio City - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Linus tweet on aesthetics⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Wonder engines - Linus⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees - Lawrence Weschler⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠lost to wonder⁠⁠

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