Herbert Simon's 40-year-old advice on computers nails how to use AI today
msg · x · 2026-10-15
A resurfaced Herbert Simon passage argues his usual advice — decide what you'll use a computer for before buying — was actually bad advice: you only learn what to do with one by having it around. A computer's most impressive capacity, he wrote, is to "be its own instructional device": talk to it, hit the keys, immerse yourself. Widely read as applying directly to how we should approach AI today.
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