Drawing Boxes vs. Shading Them In

There are two primary kinds of human endeavor: drawing boxes and shading them in. The first defines the boundaries of behavior, culture, and discussion; it draws the boxes. The latter implements those definitions and works within those boundaries. In other words, it shades them in. I think these two definitions can help us grapple with a lot of the current debate around the role of humans and A.I. going forward. To see how, let's first explore what I mean by shading in via some historical analogues. Shading In For simplicity, let's pick a story most people might be familiar with: classical physics. The broad story goes thus: At first no one really knew why or how things moved. Aristotle had some ideas, they weren't all that useful. Then Isaac Newton (and Godfried Liebnitz) discovered calculus and Newton coined his so called Laws of Motion. Together those two ideas set modern physics, well, into motion. The next two centuries spawned innovators who built on Newton, abstracted his math,…