Why Silicon Valley’s obsession with logic is breaking the world

J.P. Morgan, a techno-optimist, could not have foreseen the tumultuous 20th century despite his investments in emerging technologies. Today's world shares parallels with the 1920s, including technological shifts, social unrest, and global crises, demanding careful navigation. Influenced by figures like Wittgenstein, intellectuals embraced logical positivism, aiming to apply logic to human affairs, but this faced a crisis due to paradoxes. Hilbert's program to solidify mathematics through completeness, consistency, and computability was challenged by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, showing limitations of logical systems. Turing's work on computability paradoxically led to the creation of digital computers, highlighting the utility of flawed machines. The rationalist drive to overcome human flaws through logic led to devastating ideologies in the 20th century. Heidegger emphasized the importance of "dwelling," understanding how people live, to inform building and thinking. A world built solely on detached thinking leads to dehumanization, exemplified by frustrating AI interactions. Disconnectedness from reality can lead to harmful applications of powerful technologies like AI and genetic engineering. We must be careful, connected, and wary of utopian visions of pure logic to avoid repeating history's mistakes.