We often assume that creation implies control.
That what we build - we can govern.
That what we launch - we can recall.
That what we engineer - we can steer.
But creation is not mastery... It's even quite the opposite!
Creation is a rupture, a breach, an opening of a system that CAN NOT be "reclosed".
Governance or the illusion of control
"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." John Culkin (often misattributed to McLuhan)
From AI systems to geopolitical architectures, from supply chains to global media ecosystems, our inventions... have kind of escaped our feedback loops.
We don't really govern algorithms.
We nudge them, and hope for correlation.
We don't really govern globalization.
We adjust, we react, we contain.
Each layer of complexity multiplies the risk of emergent consequences - those things no one predicted, but everyone suffers from.
And to be honest: the more I reflect on governance, the more I believe that complexity is "simply" becoming visible.
Most of our institutions were built for another era: slower systems, predictable threats, clear borders.
But today, influence spreads without attribution, markets collapse without visible cause, and power migrates to actors we can't regulate.
We try to regulate chaos with linear laws!
It doesn't work.
And it never will.
The birth of non-human logic
The more complex our systems become, the less they respond to human input.
Take AI.
It doesn't 'follow' orders.