Don't overlook books that are critical of engineering as it is often practiced and how it fits into our society:
Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum (1976). Weizenbaum wrote
Eliza, the first AI chatbot, almost sixty years ago and was appalled at the reception. This book is still very pertinent, especially the Introduction,
Chapter 1 On Tools, chapter 9, Incomprehensible Programs, and chapter 10,
Against the Imperialism of Instrumental Reason. Chapter 4, Science and the Compulsive Programmer, is one of the first written accounts of the hacker culture.
Weizenbaum's original paper on Eliza (1966) [0] is still very pertinent to the present generation of chatbots, especially the introduction and discussion.
Tools for Conviviality, Ivan Illich (1973) [1]. Influenced recent work
by the computer scientists Steven Kell [2],[3] and Kartik Agaram [4].
Computation and Human Experience, Phil Agre (1997) (excerpt at [5]). Agre
got a PhD in AI at MIT in the 80s and 90s and became very critical of the field.
I think his shorter writings [6][7] are a better introduction, especially the personal memoir at [6]:
"about how I became (relatively speaking, and in a small way) a better person through philosophy."
Wow, I just wanted to say thanks a lot for posting this. I'm in a very similar boat. I was always very focused and goal-oriented in my younger days - a bit of a workaholic but generally enjoyed working hard. A number of changes since the pandemic have left me feeling very similar to you:
1. Like tons of other people, I re-evaluated my relationship with work during the pandemic. To be honest, it wasn't easy. I think a ton of people (especially Americans) tie up their self-worth with their jobs, and during the pandemic I just felt more disconnected from my job.
2. I think a lot of folks have underestimated the psychological changes that happen from being way more isolated these days. I don't mean "shut-in" isolated, I just mean that working remote most days means the number of people I interact with in person has gone way, way down. I'm all for remote work but I won't deny that I greatly miss a lot of the energy from just being around other people.
3. Finally, I've just become really disillusioned with tech over the course of my career, which makes me very sad. I started my career during the dot com boom, and there was so much optimism about the beneficial societal changes that tech and the Internet would bring. I don't feel like all tech is "evil" these days, but I do feel that the world would be better off if all the big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) just completely stopped building any new tech. Obviously that's not realistic, but it highlights my feeling that I'm not looking forward to any new tech from these companies, because more tech is going to invariably lead to more isolation, more "doom scrolling", more assaults on our attention. I feel like most big tech companies have just become the equivalent of drug dealers, just trying to hijack our brain's evolutionary attention mechanisms to addict us. "Attention is all you need" is right...
Anyway, don't have any advice or anything, just wanted to say I appreciated your post in a "misery loves company" sort-of-way, so thank you.
Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum (1976). Weizenbaum wrote Eliza, the first AI chatbot, almost sixty years ago and was appalled at the reception. This book is still very pertinent, especially the Introduction, Chapter 1 On Tools, chapter 9, Incomprehensible Programs, and chapter 10, Against the Imperialism of Instrumental Reason. Chapter 4, Science and the Compulsive Programmer, is one of the first written accounts of the hacker culture.
Weizenbaum's original paper on Eliza (1966) [0] is still very pertinent to the present generation of chatbots, especially the introduction and discussion.
Tools for Conviviality, Ivan Illich (1973) [1]. Influenced recent work by the computer scientists Steven Kell [2],[3] and Kartik Agaram [4].
Computation and Human Experience, Phil Agre (1997) (excerpt at [5]). Agre got a PhD in AI at MIT in the 80s and 90s and became very critical of the field. I think his shorter writings [6][7] are a better introduction, especially the personal memoir at [6]: "about how I became (relatively speaking, and in a small way) a better person through philosophy."
0. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168
1. http://akkartik.name/illich.pdf
2. https://www.humprog.org/~stephen//research/talks/kell19de-es...
3. https://www.humprog.org/~stephen//research/talks/kell19softw...
4. http://akkartik.name/akkartik-convivial-20200607.pdf
5. https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/che-intro.html
6. https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/notes/00-7-12.html
7. https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/critical.html