No One’s Driving
The Modern World Has Finally Become Too Complex for Any of Us to Understand
Vast systems, from automated supply chains to high-frequency trading, now undergird our daily lives — and we’re losing control of all of them
Welcome to No One’s Driving — a column by novelist and tech writer Tim Maughan about how to understand a world governed by systems and technologies that are spiraling out of control.
One of the dominant themes of the last few years is that nothing makes sense. Donald Trump is president, QAnon has mainstreamed fringe conspiracy theories, and hundreds of thousands are dead from a pandemic and climate change while many Americans do not believe that the pandemic or climate change are deadly. It’s incomprehensible.
I am here to tell you that the reason so much of the world seems incomprehensible is that it is incomprehensible. From social media to the global economy to supply chains, our lives rest precariously on systems that have become so complex, and we have yielded so much of it to technologies and autonomous actors that no one totally comprehends it all.
In other words: No one’s driving. And if we hope to retake the wheel, we’re going to have to…
