Chris Quinn

Operations and Education Director at Johnson's Farm. Former teacher. Father. Husband.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Two things humans uniquely do.

Context complexity: Overlay and navigate different contexts in a particular situation.

Committment: Close gaps between what is and what can be, at both a high level (the gap between what we perceive and what we pay attention to) and a more granular one (the gap between what we decide on and what we act on).

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Artificiality seeks to collapse your ability to orient.

Ideologies seek to colonize your ability to orient.

These are the two great existential threats. And they are human threats, not AI ones.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Orientation without attention is conditioning: observation becomes stimulus; decision and action becomes response.

The committment gap gets collapsed. This is how we lose agency. Not because of AI, but because we abdicate attention.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Observation without attention is stimulus. Orientation without attention is response.

Attention is that which keeps your life from becoming a behaviorist experiment at scale.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Some of the best parents I know are struggling with their teens and tech use (particularly cell phones). What's frightening is that they have little to no advice.

Artificial contexts are collapsing young people's ability to attend to the world, their loved ones, and themselves.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@drewcoffman Excellent product. The Tincan phone is another amazing one. Can't find them on X to tag, but huge thumbs up to them.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@dperkinsed @blambroll I'll check it out! Polanyi is a refreshing thinker. A scientist who recognizes the human element--and the simple fact that we are observers, not objective measure takers. @dperkinsed I feel like he's very aligned with a lot of your thinking.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Committments aren't decisions. They are the circumstances that remove complexity from decision making.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@blambroll Yes. Even though I focused on calling out the individual frame, I think it must be shared. Ive been reading Michael Polanyi (its not easy). The community of people is what reveals reality worthy of beauty and commitment.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@blambroll Whats your definition?

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@blambroll Coherence of a an individual's understanding of themselves, others, the world. A framework of the individual that is able to contain the splintering effect that our world has. Thats what I'm taking it to mean But I fear I'm reading too much of my ideas into it!

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

The process of becoming human has no end. It's only when we stop becoming that machine intelligence catches up.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Im reading Personal Knowledge by Polanyi now. I'm struck by the language he uses. We're so conditioned to view science mechanistically that words like "committment" or "participation" are thrown away as unscientific. But he shows that those concepts are foundational to the scientific (and learning) endeavor! Thanks for sharing that study. But even without it, we know that stuff is important!

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@sharemath Participation. Not hand raising participation, but the committment of a student to an idea. This might be soft science, but CLT can't account for this!

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Great point. I think there is context dependence as well. Artificial contexts tend to collapse a person's ability to orient beyond that artificial environment. I think you guys are doing an excellent job of continuously pushing kids outside the artificial context though (time limits, non-stimulating environments, etc).

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Work out in 90 degree heat for just 20 minutes. You'll see what humans can do that machines will never be able to.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Committment is the human faculty that closes the gap between decision and action. That liminal space of tension is purely human. No machine can replicate that.

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

@sage_teacher I'm loving these videos!

[Chris Quinn @cfsquinn]

Why are AI note recorders a thing, like @PLAUDAI?

Because artificial intelligence can not deal with context complexity. We will continue to see AI powered products develop and find market niches. The narrative of the all-powerful AI that controls your entire day is a doomsday narrative that places humanity in the role of victim.

Builders, keep building those niche products. Real humans will continue to use them.