Ask HN: If not a bicycle for the mind then what?
Software was supposed to be a bicycle for the mind. Instead we got something else, what is the best analogy for "the thing" software actually became?
So be a maker of great things.
Every one of us can make software the great tool for empowerment and creativity that it was meant to be.
To quote early Apple employee Guy Kawasaki: "Don't kvetch; Kick Butt"
As to what technology wants: Ask Kevin Kelley This is the earlier version of what he wrote:
https://kk.org/thetechnium/what-technology/
But in short (summarized with human intelligence)
Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants:
Increasing efficiency
Increasing opportunity
Increasing emergence
Increasing complexity
Increasing diversity
Increasing specialization
Increasing ubiquity
Increasing freedom
Increasing mutualism
Increasing beauty
Increasing sentience
Increasing structure
Increasing evolvability
Obviously, there are plenty of examples of software being a "bicycle for the mind," and plenty not.
A lot of software now is just colorful bloatware wrappers around existing software. Old stuff, found new money. I still can't wrap my head around the concept of phone apps. as in why they even exist in the first place. I've heard all the reasons but my mind can not accept any of them.
Just as LLMs have a useful niche but they are hyped as being able to cure baldness, liver disease, incontinence, erectile dysfunction, blindness, anxiety and surely and attract the ladies even when mixed with agentic tools.
In medicine, it's a rule of thumb that if a product claims to cure a wide variety of things that have no common pathogenesis, the claims are bunk.
In software, if a product claims to solve a variety of problems that have no common cause, those claims are bunk.