Progress of a Sort

Four decades is a long time to be doing anything.  And it's truly hard to believe we've been at this for that many years.  But this is true in almost any field; time just seems to fly by and even somehow pick up speed during the journey.

We're definitely progressing.  There can be a debate on whether it's enough or in the right direction, but we cannot say there hasn't been movement.  It's very easy to lose sight of the ground covered when you've been part of the journey.

Let's start with some very recent progress affecting the magazine and its future.

We believe we have met the challenge that was thrown at us late last year when Amazon pulled the rug out from under small publishers and stopped supporting magazine subscriptions on their Kindle devices.  While Amazon wants us to remain in their Kindle Unlimited program, initial estimates say we'd earn less than one sixth of what we had been earning while Amazon themselves, naturally, would do much better.  That doesn't exactly fill us with enthusiasm, particularly since we did the work to get thousands of Amazon customers to use their Kindles to subscribe to 2600 and now they're being abandoned while we lose vital subscriber support.

So now the hard part is ahead of us.  We're putting a new system in place that will not only allow PDF subscriptions, but also for Kindles to be sideloaded with EPUB editions that will work seamlessly in those devices without Amazon being able to interfere.  Since Amazon won't permit us to communicate with our Kindle subscribers, we are going to need to really raise our voices to get the word out that new options are becoming available.

Our new digital subscription will have a few goals:

We just weren't satisfied with the features or security of any subscription product that was already out there, which is why we broke our asses to put something brand new together.  And by the time you read this, we hopefully will have succeeded or will have some significant progress to report.  Please keep looking for updates on the 2600.com website.  We also really need help in getting the word out to those who may not even be aware of what's going on.

We want to thank everyone for the support and encouragement that is getting us through this massive challenge.  But enough about our problems.

Far more important is what is happening to us as people and as societies.  Much of the idealism we sought after in those early years was actually achieved.  Look in our early pages and you'll see the frustration we all were having just in getting access.  Nobody could afford a computer of their own, and the best chance you had of experimenting with one was either getting enrolled in a university or hacking into a machine somewhere.  People literally risked a criminal record to learn UNIX.  And now, access is everywhere and it's become trivial to achieve it - or to gift it to someone who isn't able to themselves.

Mere communications was something else hackers yearned for in those early days.  Red Boxes, Blue Boxes, and much of the phone phreak culture centered around bypassing Ma Bell and figuring out ways to make phone calls for free.  Sure, it was a game, but it was also a human necessity to be able to reach out and talk to one another, one that the phone companies jealously restricted.  To have the ability to reach the entire world held so close to us for the first time in humanity's history only to have it restricted by arbitrary cost - or more accurately, a series of tones - was simply too much for many to resist.  And we're lucky they didn't.

Today we can connect all around the world without fear of bankrupting our parents.  It's an incredible ability - and a method of bypassing the controls imposed upon us in other ways.  We're not restricted to our small and insular communities.  It's possible to reach out to those on the other side of the planet who think and live very differently from us.  We have the ability to learn and teach on our own terms.  Or we can just take it all for granted and never really appreciate the true magic that we have.

This is the same landscape we witnessed in our early years.  Those who followed all the rules would never experience the wonder and the joy of a new piece of technology outside of the confining rules they were presented with.  But to people like us, a new message on a computer, a ringing phone, or the sound of a pager all represented new adventure, not just a job and more responsibility.  If we treat today's advances in that same nonchalant way, we risk not starting the revolutions in thinking that so desperately need to happen.

Today we are experiencing the next steps in artificial intelligence.  Lately, everyone seems to be playing with applications like ChatGPT.  The speed and human-like responses are everything from impressive to terrifying.  And that's the part we have full control over.

This is not a genie that will get back into the bottle.  These kinds of tools are here to stay and they will only get more sophisticated.  We'll see them used in all sorts of other applications.  And like any tool ever invented, there will be possibilities of great good and great evil that come out of them.  We can (and will) react with fear, ignorance, and hostility.  We can pretend to get a handle on the technology and simply try to ban and control it in ways that are easily defeated.  How many times have we seen this exact same strategy play out in the past?  When has it ever worked?

As hackers, we need to push any new technology to the limit.  We need to try to break it.  We need to misuse and abuse it, devising applications that were never originally intended.  From all that, we build something better.  And so it goes.

We're about to enter a world where it will no longer be assumed that the video we see is what really happened, that the politician we hear speak actually ever said those things, or that the words you're reading originated with a human.  That may be frightening or disconcerting, and we can certainly see why.  Any revolution has that effect.  And right now, everything we've grown used to is being thrown on its ear.  Those who usually have the answers may not know how to handle what's developing right in front of us.  This is the time where innovative thought and creative ways of solving problems emerge from unexpected places.

Basically, what this all means is that nothing's the same anymore.  Everything that's been defined as real in the past may no longer fit that definition.  It might become difficult to distinguish human from AI.  But difficult is not impossible.  There has never been a time in history where some form of technology has taken over a human's job and managed to continue building and expanding upon the original idea, all the while keeping humans excluded.  Our functions change and, most often, take on more of an organizational role as we evolve in a new direction which never would have been possible had we continued to be mired in our previous occupations.

It may be hard to see it here.  But we're walking down that same road.  The rules have changed once more.  We can no longer believe what we see, hear, or read.  We're going to need more background and more knowledge if we don't want to be taken advantage of.

Rather than look at these new tools with either suspicion or as a means of cheating, let's figure out how best to use them in order to help us achieve what we're attempting to do.  That then enables us to accomplish even more and reach heights we never would have gotten to otherwise.

We spend a substantial amount of time dealing with the effects of future fear.  Like with those early days, we see a lot of anxiety and dread being expressed by those who don't understand or appreciate the technology or the potentials - and sometimes by those who understand all too well.

Just like back in the early days, there are those of us looking forward to the fun that's ahead.
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