A springtime for everything
On self-driving cars, Ecclesiastes, and nature's own form of automation
Though we don’t really make much direct use of the word itself, we live in a period that is infatuated with automation. Generative artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and “smart home” products are all derivatives of the same instinct to make machines do more of our work.
■ That isn’t a wrong instinct, but it could use a little bit of temperance -- a sensibility, borrowed from Ecclesiastes, that there is a time for all things. Springtime offers the compelling reminder that nature has always had a form of automation, unlikely as that may seem, in the form of perennial plants.
■ While lots of things (including most food crops) need to be planted each year, many plants fall dormant as fall turns to winter, then reawaken -- automatically -- with the return of sunlight, rain, and other resources in the spring. Once planted, perennials “know” when it’s time to come back, even without any cognition.
■ Perennials don’t belong everywhere; they foreclose on practices like crop rotation and letting fields go fallow. Nor do perennials offer all of the same benefits in the same measures as their annual counterparts; if you see a really spectacular flower, there’s a pretty good chance it’s an annual. And many perennials need boundaries, since their ability to keep coming back means they can encroach on other plants if left unchecked for long.
■ The same kinds of lessons, long proven by the trial and error of billions of years of evolution, should be applied to the creations of our own modern making. Automation doesn’t belong everywhere; it may fall short of what rival approaches can do. It may have appealing outputs, but they’re not always going to be better than the work of a focused human. It shouldn’t be rushed into every nook and cranny, since it won’t always be the best fit.
■ It’s easy to be drawn into assuming that every new situation we encounter is really novel, but there are often patterns to recognize in the presence of whatever is new.