Friday, July 11, 2025

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Bret Victor Critiques AI Trends, Advocates Humane Dynamic Computing

An overview of Dynamicland’s Realtalk system emphasizing communal, physical computing and its divergence from mainstream AI trends

From Hacker News Original Article Hacker News Discussion

Dynamicland is a nonprofit research lab developing Realtalk, a novel computing environment where people collaboratively program physical objects in shared real-world spaces, aiming to create a humane, visible, and communal dynamic medium.

Why it matters: Realtalk challenges traditional computing by embedding computation directly into physical materials, fostering full user agency and face-to-face collaboration.

The big picture: Dynamicland envisions a cultural shift akin to literacy, where dynamic computational media become widespread, empowering communities to understand and shape complex systems.

The other side: Commenters raise concerns about scalability, interoperability of physical objects, and the difficulty of fully understanding such systems despite their transparency goals.

Commenters say: Many admire the idealism and innovation but question practical challenges like system complexity, integration with AI, projection constraints, and how everyday users grasp the programming model.