What Will Happen as Knowledge Becomes Code?
- Ben Pring
- May 23, 2024
- 4 min read
When I used to live in London in the 1980’s and 90’s, I loved taking taxis. Sitting in the back, taking the weight off, seeing the sights, talking about the football results, or the latest nonsense from the latest Prime Minister who was “bolloxing things right up”, I learned the town - the Victoria to Ladbroke Grove run, the fastest way from Marylebone to West Hampstead, where the Monument was, and how to avoid tourists on my way to the World’s End. Cabbies were, mostly, diamond geezers, who amazed as they ducked and dived their way around one of the biggest, craziest, most intimidating places on earth, with every path and route memorized and available instantaneously.
The Knowledge - the colloquialism that described the process of knowing every street in London and becoming a licensed taxi driver - was almost a myth to us passengers, something that was whispered about and seemed a mystical Arthurian legend. How could an ordinary bloke with an anchor tattoo on his forearm know the quickest route from Gladesmore Community School, Crowland Road, Tottenham, London N15 6EB to The Odeon, 47 Streatham High Street, Streatham, London SW16 1PW, when he’d probably never driven that route before? A mere mortal wouldn’t have been able to do that, even one with a degree in Philosophy from The University of Manchester. The mere mortal would have had a mental breakdown long before they even got to Finsbury Park.
Gaining “The Knowledge” was at minimum, a three year process, when the aspiring King of the Road would drive around London on a scooter with a paper map attached to the handle bars, practicing a designated route and noting all the buildings and landmarks along the way. Given that the Government were happy to fund my leisurely preamble down the highways and byways of Plato and Sartre and Wittgenstein but not the proto-taxi driver’s apprenticeship, these three long, daunting years were undertaken on evenings and weekends, when his (occasionally her) paying job was done.
One fine day, the nervous aspirant would take a test, and having passed it (at the first or 10th go) be given a Hackney Carriage license and the right to make a living that would see our Young Hero rise into the Middle Class and build a future to make his (occasionally her) poor Ma & Pa proud.
Fast Forward to 2024. The Knowledge is dead. The Knowledge is Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, your car’s proprietary map. The Knowledge talks to you, tells you it’s recalculating, buzzes on your wrist phone that you should take a left, points out that you’re passing the spot where the Great Fire of London of 1666 started, tells you that West Ham are one-nil down and that the PM has just resigned.
In 2010, 2,484 people took The Knowledge. In 2021, 221.
Now when I’m in London I tap on my Uber app and a private car (not the famous Black Cab) picks me up from my meeting and I rush, the driver and I both wordless after the “Ben?”, “Sadiq?” ritual greeting, to my next ever so important engagement.
Software is eating the world. Software has eaten The Knowledge.
Now, it’s not my point here to argue the merits of Black Cabs versus Uber/Lyft. I loved/love Black Cabs and I like Uber. My point is to suggest that what has happened in the taxi industry in London is going to happen to whatever knowledge occupation you pursue.
In 2005, there were 68,265 licensed taxi drivers. Once established, that person made a respectable bourgeois salary. If they worked evenings, weekends, holidays as well, they could make a very good salary indeed, comparable to a doctor or a suburban lawyer. Over a 30 or 40 year period that person could buy a house, raise a family, pay taxes - in short be an upstanding member of society (with a fair wind).
In 2024 there are 17,832 licensed taxi drivers and 106,356 licensed private hire drivers, aka Uber/Lyft drivers. Licensed taxi drivers tell me, when I do raise an arm and jump aboard, that the “game’s up” and “fings ain’t wot they used to be”. Uber drivers all moan, if I go beyond the ritual greeting and ask “how’s business?”, “Not great man, not great”. The average salary for an Uber driver in London is $30,667.
It’s tough to buy a house, raise a family, pay taxes in London on $30,667.
Software has increased the supply of drivers - because one doesn’t need to learn The Knowledge - and driven prices down, which is obviously great for customers.
Software has increased the supply of drivers - because one doesn’t need to learn The Knowledge - and driven prices down, which is obviously terrible for drivers. Particularly, the original Cabbies.
Software is eating the world. Next? Insurance clerks, bank employees, teachers? Then, lawyers, doctors, aging Philosophers?
As software learns your knowledge, the economics of your industry are going to change. Uber’s market capitalization in early May 2024 is $135.36bn.
What knowledge is immune to the fate of The Knowledge? Search me Guv’nor.
“LLMs achieve state of the art accuracy diagnosis for major respiratory diseases”.
“An AI model that can predict the structure of and interactions between biological molecules including proteins, DNA and RNA, and small molecules that could function as drugs”.
“BP needs 70% less coders because of its use of GenAI”.
“The minute-long Apple ad showing art equipment and materials being crushed down into the new iPad Pro is being called heartbreaking, wanton, and creepy".
As software learns your knowledge, your personal economics are going to change.
I hope you’re immune. I really do. But I doubt it.
Software is eating the world. Eating ordinary human knowledge. Knowledge that funds buying houses, raising families, paying taxes. That, in short, and with a fair wind, produces upstanding members of society.
Software’s proponents argue for democratization and abundance and there is merit to that.
But I don’t think any of us have got any idea what the transition ahead of us is going to be like, as knowledge - probably all knowledge - becomes code.
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