Unintended Consequences of Technology
I used to navigate by mental map and a spiral-bound book in the seat pocket. Now I follow turn-by-turn directions so blindly I sometimes wonder how long it would take me to find my way home. If AI reads your email and makes your decisions, what gets quietly lost?
When I was a teenager and into my early 20s, I had a large spiral bound map book in the back pocket of the driver's seat in my car. I didn't have to use it often though. The rare trip to a new location was just a few turns beyond some other location I knew well. My "mental map" was adequate to get me almost all the way there before I had to make use of some verbal instructions that might have referenced a gas station, post office or some other easily recognizable landmark.
And then 2008 happened. February 5, more specifically.
I worked at Bloomberg at the time. A co-worker and I left work a little early and made the short walk over to the 5th Avenue Apple Store where we waited in line with a thousand other people (literally), to buy the newly launched iPhone. It wasn't until a couple years later that an iPhone had an integrated GPS. The original iPhone could use cell phone tower triangulation to generally locate you, which was really helpful relative to my paper map. I still had to do the work of understanding my precise location and orientation though.
And then turn-by-turn directions happened.
