This overly long sentence is both verbose and purposeful, and that is the point.
Large language models have reduced simple communications into complex paths. This essay intends to accomplish the opposite. The macroeconomic forces of a technology that allows humans to create with natural language inherently insist on a model that diminishes said language.
When meaning becomes currency, it is only practical for humans who control the meaning to ration the currency. Charles Goodhart once said, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” We have seen this proven true with measurements such as KPIs, engagement, and censuses. Wherever a measurement can be gamed for the benefit of those measuring, it will be. That is a simple fact of human nature unless otherwise acted upon.
During the initial rise of the internet, engagement was lauded as the measurement by which to drive success. But engagement in itself is neither good nor bad. Nor is it indicative of value. Value instead is found in careful consideration. A sentiment antithetical to most valuation propositions.
In the age where thought can become product, the value lies not in the product but in the thought that produces it. And if the value is so therein derived, so must be its equal. Should the thoughts of a man be worth a day’s bread?
Should his brain bear no scars? His soul no toil. His restless nights, unburned.
We have created a brilliant sapphire foundation by which thought becomes, and yet hamstrung it at the same time by the inabilities of commerce. Until our measure is met not with what we produce, but why we produce it, we reduce our meaning. So in kind.