The live case#

the case for a loss in progress#

Generative models can now produce competent first drafts of writing, code, and analysis that a person used to have to produce themselves in order to develop the underlying judgement. Weeks 6 and 7 both describe how a capability can erode without anyone deciding to erode it: automate the output well enough, and the practice that used to build the underlying skill stops happening as often.

If that pattern holds here, the tacit knowledge built by doing the work yourself is exactly the kind of thing week 2 argues doesn’t survive in the output alone — and the output is increasingly all that gets produced.

the case against#

Every automation this course has studied changed what skill was needed without necessarily reducing the total skill in the system — Zuboff’s argument is precisely that smart machines demand new capabilities from the people who work with them, even as they remove old ones. Editing, prompting, and judging model output at scale may be a real capability being built right now, not a gap opening up.

On this reading, week 1’s distinction cuts the other way: the record (what the model produces) and the capability (what the person using it can actually do) are just as separable in the optimistic direction as in the pessimistic one.

discussion#

• Which of the last ten weeks’ cases did you find yourself reaching for first while reading the case for a loss? Which for the case against?
• What does noticing that reach say about which side you were already inclined to argue, before either slide made its case?

activity: split the room and debate#

Setup (5 min). Split the room in half.

Round 1 (15 min). One half argues the case for a loss in progress; the other argues the case against. Use only material from weeks 1–10, cited by week number.

Round 2 (15 min). Now argue against your own side from round 1, using the same rule: weeks 1–10 only, cited by week number.

Reflection (5 min). In your original pair, say one thing that changed for you between arguing your side and arguing against it.

debrief#

What came out of arguing against your own side in round 2 that didn’t come up in round 1? Does the case you found more natural to argue first still feel more natural now?

wrap-up#

This whole seminar is the open question. Decide, if you want to, on your own time — but notice which case you reached for first, and what that says about which side you were already inclined to argue. Week 12 has no new case at all: the class brings its own, and tests whether the method built across these eleven weeks still holds up.