What have you missed? Here goes. Chatbots as lovers, fantasy validators, and helpful suicide coaches. (Artificial) Scarcity of electronic components and computing peripherals, projected to become infrastructure crises and destructions of edgewise markets. And of course, the bubble which when burst, will likely leave vast swathes of ordinary people impoverished.
So much winning in the AI race, only cyborgs and transhumans can keep up.
It always surprised me growing up in the 80s that people didn't blow up the world already. I guess there's still time, because those in control of things are all lunatics. There is too much greed around AI for people to voluntarily stop, and electing a democrat who is pro-tech will do nothing because everyone will put on their pussy hats back on and go to brunch like last time.
Over the past two decades, I’ve become gradually convinced that only a catastrophe could shake our societies out of our stupor, could shake off the yoke of control by the wealthy few. That only a large disruption to our « good-enough » materially-adequate (though slowly but surely impoverishing) would spur us to the collective action and reform we need to create truly self-governing, egalitarian decision-making.
I’ve been pessimistic that this level of crisis would only be provoked by accelerating devastation of ecosystem collapse, and that we would be out of time to prevent really terrible results. The probability that such a crisis will be caused soon by AI mega-corporations gives me cautious optimism : we humans will need to tear down hierarchy, private wealth and non-consensual decision-making soon in order to avert suffering on a scale those of us outside failed states can’t imagine.
What we’ll need to deal with the AI elite’s power grab in the very short-term future is exactly what we’ll need anyway to deal with the consequences of environmental degradation in the medium-term. Maybe this is cold comfort, but our human societies have needed radical change for a good while now, and we might as well grapple with it now.
"...like so many utopian movements throughout history, they will leave a trail of devastating destruction in their wake..." Absolutely right.
What have you missed? Here goes. Chatbots as lovers, fantasy validators, and helpful suicide coaches. (Artificial) Scarcity of electronic components and computing peripherals, projected to become infrastructure crises and destructions of edgewise markets. And of course, the bubble which when burst, will likely leave vast swathes of ordinary people impoverished.
So much winning in the AI race, only cyborgs and transhumans can keep up.
It always surprised me growing up in the 80s that people didn't blow up the world already. I guess there's still time, because those in control of things are all lunatics. There is too much greed around AI for people to voluntarily stop, and electing a democrat who is pro-tech will do nothing because everyone will put on their pussy hats back on and go to brunch like last time.
Excited for you Cal Newport conversation!
Over the past two decades, I’ve become gradually convinced that only a catastrophe could shake our societies out of our stupor, could shake off the yoke of control by the wealthy few. That only a large disruption to our « good-enough » materially-adequate (though slowly but surely impoverishing) would spur us to the collective action and reform we need to create truly self-governing, egalitarian decision-making.
I’ve been pessimistic that this level of crisis would only be provoked by accelerating devastation of ecosystem collapse, and that we would be out of time to prevent really terrible results. The probability that such a crisis will be caused soon by AI mega-corporations gives me cautious optimism : we humans will need to tear down hierarchy, private wealth and non-consensual decision-making soon in order to avert suffering on a scale those of us outside failed states can’t imagine.
What we’ll need to deal with the AI elite’s power grab in the very short-term future is exactly what we’ll need anyway to deal with the consequences of environmental degradation in the medium-term. Maybe this is cold comfort, but our human societies have needed radical change for a good while now, and we might as well grapple with it now.