> I'm already seeing this happening in a number of industries (including software development).
Hm, that's a good point.
I see other commenters getting hung up on the idea that "in a world where nobody can tell that a piano is 0.01% out of tune, does it even count as out of tune?"
But that's just a toy example, and though the author already did directly address it, many don't seem to understand the impact. Maybe it helps to put it into other terms.
I can tell when there's problems in software that I couldn't write. Similarly with most systems I interact with. For society to lose the knowledge of making $system perfectly doesn't mean that nobody will ever know, it means everybody who interacts with $system will just be a little bit less happy than they would be otherwise.
Our societal fitness will be reduced because we'll all be a little less happy, a little less healthy, etc. Saying "it doesn't matter if this thing is a little worse and nobody knows how it could be better" is like saying a parasite is fine because you've been living with it for years.
Hm, that's a good point.
I see other commenters getting hung up on the idea that "in a world where nobody can tell that a piano is 0.01% out of tune, does it even count as out of tune?"
But that's just a toy example, and though the author already did directly address it, many don't seem to understand the impact. Maybe it helps to put it into other terms.
I can tell when there's problems in software that I couldn't write. Similarly with most systems I interact with. For society to lose the knowledge of making $system perfectly doesn't mean that nobody will ever know, it means everybody who interacts with $system will just be a little bit less happy than they would be otherwise.
Our societal fitness will be reduced because we'll all be a little less happy, a little less healthy, etc. Saying "it doesn't matter if this thing is a little worse and nobody knows how it could be better" is like saying a parasite is fine because you've been living with it for years.