Magic, Mundanity and Deep Protocolization

It reflects a sound understanding of the nature of AI — as an uncredited and formless modifier of other technologies. One whose presence is marked by familiar behaviors having slightly magical effects. (View Highlight)

The main act will be an overlay of magical behavioral tendencies and dispositions gradually wrapping itself around all our familiar everyday technology. (View Highlight)

Instead of adding a subtly magical overlay to the effects of interactions, protocols reveal their presence by quietly lowering or eliminating friction across the overall experience of using a technology. (View Highlight)

But Apple’s version of protocolization is faux-protocolization, because it controls the entire user experience on its platforms dictatorially, and you only get this kind of frictionlessness where it is in Apple’s interests to provide it. (View Highlight)

they are all controlled by the One Ring in Cupertino. (View Highlight)

protocolized technologies attempt to loosen the Industrial-era convenience-vs-sovereignty tradeoff. They attempt to deliver more day-to-day convenient technological agency without surrendering political agency during rarer critical situations. (View Highlight)

True protocolization is when you get unexpected frictionlessness in an open technological context when dealing with unrelated but entangled entities in concert, without ceding rarely needed but critical political agency elsewhere. (View Highlight)

In fact, the only time you notice the protocolization is when you return to older experiences that haven’t been protocolized in the same way, and suddenly what once seemed like an unalterable condition in the world starts to seem like unacceptable friction, or worse, artificially constructed and maintained impossibility. (View Highlight)

For example, once you’ve started playing even a little bit with the customizable feeds of Farcaster and Bluesky, the rigidity of the Twitter algorithm seems like horrifying autocracy. Custom feeds is a relatively recent development, but already feels like the natural way for such technologies to work. Why on earth have we been arguing with Twitter management about how feeds should behave? It’s now obvious that we shouldn’t need anyone’s permission to design our feed to our own tastes. The only force that has the right to stop us is our own laziness and apathy. (View Highlight)

Protocols are mundanity sauce for all technological friction. (View Highlight)