By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026Because whatever else theory-free inference is, it is a way to swap the bottleneck of "before we can use a computer to help us do something, we need to find an expert who can explain how that thing works"; for a different bottleneck. 1234
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026That bottleneck is: "before we can use a computer to help us do something, we must spend an enormous amount of money on computing power to find statistical relationships between how things work." 1295
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026Both money and expertise are scarce, but they are *unevenly distributed*. Expertise is almost entirely in the hands of people who aren't wealthy. 1365
