I probably owe Andy Boenau a bit of an apology. I got a bit pedantic and grumpy with him in the comments of this post, where he takes to task people who are skeptical of technology and urban planning. Andy describes LLMs basically correctly but then goes on to ascribe to them uses that they aren’t really meant for. he conflates LLMs with algorithms in general, in my eye. On the one hand, calling that out was a bit pedantic and Andy is one of the good guys on the urbane planning issues so I probably should have let it go.
But on the other hand, he says early in the post this:
I’ve written extensively about how to design streets to calm down drivers. I’m a big believer in using technology to improve the human experience. It puzzles me that so many journalists and urbanists have opted for a “tech can’t save us” approach to life, when there’s a ton of “tech can absolutely save us” evidence.
….
When you read or hear the latest “technology is the enemy” narratives, I want you to remember:
Technology upgrades to improve the pedestrian experience (substack.com)
That’s a radical oversimplification of the critique of “technology as universal force for good” or “technology as savior” narrative that we often see, especially form Silicon Valley types. That is why I felt it important, I think, to push back on both his comments about what LLM could do and the overall notion that technology was going to be a balm for urbanism issues.
First, LLM is just about processing and remixing language. Most of the kinds of things he discusses in his articles — analyzing traffic patterns, assessing walkability, assessing infrastructure for safety, etc. — are not problems of languages. Therefore, the kinds of data crunching that can help will nor be done by LLMs. rthey will require different kinds of algorithms. And, yes, that is being pedantic. But in this case, its probably a good thing and just becasue technically correct is the best kind of correct.
By conflating the tech flavor of the day with real needs, you play int the tech hype of the day and that is usually not a good look. It encourages policy makes to waste time and money on companies that cannot deliver what is actually needed to advance urbanism. And you further enhance the reputation of companies that may be morally dubious in other ways.
I am a programmer by trade and my choice. I became a programmer because my university literally forced me to take engineering courses despite my major having nothing to do with engineering. I fell in love with the creativity and never looked back, teaching myself programming during my free time at a job I had while working my way through college. I am not anti-tech. I am anti-bullshit. And there is a lot of bullshit in technology, much of which has already hurt the cause of urbanism. Uber, Lyft, and the chimera of self-driving cars have arguably decreased support for mass transit. AirBnB has contributed to the housing crisis. And the Boring Company is a flat waste of money that could have gone to real transit solutions.
Even if I am wrong, though, even is, say, OpenAI’s nest LLM somehow finds the best way to build pedestrian and cyclist safe roads, it doesn’t matter if city planners and policy makers do not spend the resources to implement those solutions. No technology can force people to spend resources they do not want to spend. The problems of urbanism, like most problems today, are problems of capitalism and politics. It is not as if we don’t already have a large bucket of solutions to most of these problems. What we lack is the political power to implement them in most places. Technology won’t change that. It’s just one tool, a rather minor one in the context of the urbanism environment. Persuasion and organization are the only things that can bring about the change in policy that we need. Putting your faith in the latest technology hype coming out of Silicon Valley is a distraction from the real work that needs to be done to build a livable, human centered future.
The technology cavalry is not coming over the hill to save us. We are going to have to save ourselves.
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