Technological advancements in modern times appear to only benefit very few numbers of individuals. The 1960s excitement was a time when we imagined it would benefit everyone more from it--not necessarily equally, but at least life not getting worse! Now we just see ourselves being replaced and struggling more, with the "lucky" ones in precarious employment.
Whilst wealth inequality is already creeping towards record levels in the West, with potential wars are on the horizon, civil war being encouraged, and tech stocks appearing to be in a bubble alongside P/E ratios of corporate stocks at high levels like we saw before other financial disasters, it's hard for anyone to be excited about the near future.
A lot of our best science and technology emerged from bad intentions--war, accidents, control, private power struggles. A lot of our worst science and technology emerged from good intentions--charity, humanity, heroism, public works. It's a strange world. We have to contend with edge cases, the butterfly effect, and dynamic chaotic systems etc. These are some reasons for the potential "road to hell paved paved with good intentions".
The state of AI is unfortunately tragic to me. I've always loved, learned, used, designed, and then built technology. My life has largely revolved around it, and I'm witnessing another technological revolution. Yet the more I've learned about how humans use and control technology, the more I realized the truth:
Technology =/= progress.
We should all think extremely carefully about what we're contributing to. Progress is inevitable, but as designers, builders and preachers of the latest technologies, we have a small amount of power in society to help ensure resources cannot be secretly utilized against us. This small power is in our choice to use current offerings or encouraging others to, and whether we work for those who with to control us.
However, I can't believe you wrote these:
> A lot of our best science and technology emerged from bad intentions--war, accidents, control, private power struggles.
>A lot of our worst science and technology emerged from good intentions--charity, humanity, heroism, public works.
And then concluded:
> It's a strange world.
I'd suggest to make a conclusion based on a deeper analysts starting with the question "Why?"... Nothing strange about it. For starters, aren't wars always sold with good intentions? As is AI now.
> We should all think extremely carefully about what we're contributing to.
What about to whom you're contributing to?
> Progress is inevitable, but as designers, builders and preachers of the latest technologies, we have a small amount of power.
How true, it's small indeed, for the sake of clarity I'll put it differently:
Don't bring design skills to a political fight - that's definitely not the way to success, big or small.
Assume unabated growth of AI data centers in the USA: in general, you'll stop being able to afford the electricity to run your AC and your freezer before feeling pain from the extra stress on water supplies.
The water issues in the USA have many causes and do exist, but blaming DCs for them or expecting their absence/removal to fix anything is like blaming climate change on residential driveways and trying to reverse it by planting a few lawns in their place.
However, from watching public discussions about money, I think I'm a lot more clued in to how it works than most people. I get the impression most people couldn't even take what you just wrote on faith, the idea that total supply is limited rather than what any given person could get being limited only by their own creditworthiness, which means I think they'd find it really hard to care about credit running out.
> "I think I'm a lot more clued in to how it works than most people."
Which one is it? Can you be clued enough if you don't get the macro role of credit?
> I think they'd find it really hard to care about credit running out.
True, but nobody has said that's what you should try to get people to care about, it's a separate issue.
"Better than most people" is a very low bar.
(Also, not the macro role of credit, the fact it can run out even when everyone is individually credit-worthy).
- The transition from paper maps to Waze.
- The transition from unassisted to AI-assisted.
At first, this comparison made me incredibly uncomfortable, but the more I think about it, the more I believe it to be accurate.
I mean, who made the comparison has no idea. He was comparing devs to obsolete cab drivers.
But the analogy holds. And replacing "AI" with "Waze" seems to be a good litmus reality check.
- "Waze Specialist"
- "My company helps people use Waze to increase productivity"
- "I was a pioneer Waze user"
- "I've spent most of my life dreaming of something like Waze"
See how it sounds? It's perfect. We expect this technology to be as ubiquitous as GPS-assisted navigation. Maybe we should start treating it as such: a commodity.
pedrozieg•2mo ago
beardyw•2mo ago