11 ms·

The Moral Economy of Tech

241 points by jmduke 10y ago

richardbatty 10y ago
This article brings up an important source of bias that tech people risk - that we overuse models from programming when thinking about other aspects of the world. We should be learning alternative models from other subjects like economics, philosophy, sociology, etc so that we can improve our mental toolbox and avoid thinking everything works like a software system. I'd say that another related source of bias is that we are surrounded by people who think like us. It's a shame though, that the article dismisses without much explicit justification risk from artificial intelligence and the problem of death. When I first encountered these ideas, I dismissed them because they seemed weird. But if you read the arguments for caring you realise that they are actually well thought-out. For AI risk, check out http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolu... and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategie.... For an argument for tackling death, checkout http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html. Also, there's a clear answer to 'If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else?' -- because the tech elite live in a rich society where most of the fundamental problems (e.g. infectious disease control, widespread dollar-a-day level poverty, access to education) have been solved. The remaining problems are much harder and we should focus on problems where our resources can go further - e.g. in helping the global poor. We should also work on important problems that we have a lot of influence over, such as risks from artificial intelligence and surveillance technology.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > overuse models from programming when thinking about other aspects of the world Arguably we already do this when we try to map problem-domains to class-hierarchy structures (OOP)... When/if we see these flaws and start using general data structures to model the world, we'll have moved forward...
- deleted 10y ago
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- forgotuser 10y ago
  >we should focus on problems where our resources can go further - e.g. in helping the global poor. I'm not convinced that the right people to help the "global poor" are Silicon Valley technologists. Scientifically-minded entrepreneurs focused on profit but with idealistic rhetoric attempting to "help" cultures they know nothing about has, historically, not worked out great.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Colin Woodward wrote "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (ISBN-13: 978-0143122029)" and basically, the people who settled the center of the tech industry were Yankee Progressives, the sort who send third sons to be missionaries around the world. You have to accept the premise that somehow, the past stains present-day thinking more than is easily explainable, but this does not stop people who have demographically interesting professions from using this sort of thing.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    From over here in India it looks pretty good. In spite of the radically different culture, Uber has improved transportation. It turns out putting Indians into a car and charging them money works a lot like doing the same for Americans. Facebook and Whatsapp have improved communication. At work, Slack, Salesforce and Jira work the same as any western office. Why, exactly, do you think other cultures and the global poor can't use SV technologies?
    - forgotuser 10y ago
      All those technologies were first developed in the US, for an American target audience, then exported to other countries. Other things also developed in the West and then exported: electricity, vaccines, et cetera. I agree that that's generally been a good thing. The parent comment, however, seemed to imply that technologists should focus on "solving global poverty" instead of solving local problems. This represents a fundamental shift, because at that point SV technologists are attempting to solve problems they personally do not have experience with. All the examples you provide solved problems that SV itself had- transportation, communication, etc.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > We should be learning alternative models In addition to learning models from other subjects, we also need to understand that the complexity and often chaotic nature of human behavior might mean some subject can only be modeled superficially. > economics Varoufakis[1] and Blyth[2] argue that it might be impossible to create models of the economy. They both warn that there is a seductive quality to math, but that "elegance" is an oversimplification that can easily unravel when given the chaos of the real world. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AUAIzciLE&t=1355 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AUAIzciLE&t=1355 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmWbkPezgtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmWbkPezgtU
  - gshubert17 10y ago
    It is certainly impossible to create realistic models of the economy, if one's economics is based on assumptions of linearity and equilibrium. Mark Buchanan's book _Forecast_ [0] makes the case for more realistic models, using techniques from the natural sciences, that would have better predictive value. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Forecast-Physics-Meteorology-Sciences-Economics/dp/1608198537 https://www.amazon.com/Forecast-Physics-Meteorology-Sciences...
    - xyience 10y ago
      Is he rich from his superior models?
      - gshubert17 10y ago
        Good question. The book's blurb says he is a science writer; I don't know how rich he is. I guess it's easier to point out the flaws in linear, equilibrium models, and to point to better results in, say, meteorology, from using better models based on different assumptions, than it is to construct and validate completely new economic models.
- igk 10y ago
  You pushed almost ALL of my buttons...note that I on every point I almost agree with your points (which of course meant I have to nitpick them:). 1. I agree that it is important to broaden your horizon and not blindly think everything works like software. But IMO, not enough people learn to attack problems like a good hacker. I'd argue that for understanding and modeling,the fundamental principles that drive hard sciences ( best discussed by Karl Popper and Feynman in my opinion) are as of yet the only methods which have proved themselves. For doing and building complicated things, (software) engineers have developed a way of zipping between layers of abstractions which is again in this domain of fundamental principles, but less fleshed out. Economics and other "soft" sciences is then (when its done well) about properly applying these principles from hard science and engineering to domains with incredibly scarce data and no real way to do experiments(because, you know, ethics). History and other "exploratory" sciences is then about gathering more data and cleaning it. And finally, philosophy and the arts are about pushing the boundaries of our imagination and to inspire us, so we can apply all of those other tools to new domains and cross fertilize. 2. To AI Risk: I said it before, i say it again, I am incredibly disappointed in the current AI risk movement. There is way to much focus on the vague "tail risk" of a rogue AI (be it by chance of by ill will) and some sort of "paperclip" scenario, and almost no mention of the very real, very right now structural risk of continued wealth concentration, mass surveillance (which is where we agree) and mass unemployment. The tail risk in my opinion is negligible, due to simple physical constraints computing faces right now, and to the fact that we have EMP. An actual AI apocalypse just isn't going to happen. And even if you handwave that with "tail risk"/rogue actors, then I ask: why not go after bioweapons? They are much easier (since we know they can work with our current tech, unlike AI) and about as dangerous. Now, the structural problems will combine with demographical change, a regress from the brief period of increased equality (and freedom) and other factors. That stuff is happening right now. There are enough resources pointing out how many jobs will simply be made redundant,yet there are only some movements talking about UBI and other schemes to move to this post-work society. Disproportionately more noise is made about the scary death robots. 3. Death: I hope research into immortality, healthy aging (i.e. "dying with a young body at 70" ) and the likes continue. But it is very much a first world problem, nay, a millionaires and above problem. I don't buy the argument of stopping death being infinitively important on account of if making every other intervention more important. A lot of the current problems in the world are artificial (or at least not mandated by the laws of physics) and due to too much power in the hand of too few, without checks and balances. Let us fix that first, then make our overlords immortal. Tangentially, there was a great article+ discussion on HN here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523231) on the topic of Peter Thiel and his "libertarian future" I apologize for going into rant mode, I hope I managed to make it somewhat congruent
pron 10y ago
It is ironic that the people most qualified to grasp the problem of essential, irreducible complexity are software developers. That many don't shows that something very fundamental in the underpinning of computer science has been lost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11932963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11932963
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guard-of-terra 10y ago
Hidden in the article is an example how moralizing destroys soul: > Abortion has been illegal in Poland for some time, but the governing party wants to tighten restrictions on abortion by investigating every miscarriage as a potential crime. One day, you are "pro life", and the next day, you are happy to harrass people in terrible life situation.
- danharaj 10y ago
  The way I interpret these contradictions is that words in ideology are largely instrumental. They achieve a goal that is seldom stated explicitly. That's how yu get aporia like pro-life bombings of abortion clinics and people promulgating family values that refuse to recognize certain families.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    My point is that they pay with their soul (or you can call it "integrity"), up front, and then maybe achieve a questionable goal.
    - droopyEyelids 10y ago
      Possibly. An alternative explanation is that the stated goal (reducing abortion) wasn't the actual goal. For example, if controlling/subjugating women was the actual goal, then more actions taken in the context of 'pro-life' activism makes sense.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        It's hard to disentangle subconscious and conscious goals, but the goal of proscriptions against adultery and other reproductive mores usually have a foundation in primogeniture - the practice of passing land and property on to the eldest son. Robin Hanson has his "Farmer v. Forager" framework to classify many things about which people disagree with respect to social ... policy. I don't think anyone who isn't a bit ... off can openly promote subjugating women for its own sake; so it's a better story at least if there's a more rational explanation.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
While I can certainly detect a bunch of content-free mood affiliation designed to appeal to those who dislike technological liberationists, I can't tell what the point of this article is. First: In the real world, this has led to a pathology where the tech sector maximizes its own comfort. You don't have to go far to see this. Hop on BART after the conference and take a look at Oakland, or take a stroll through downtown San Francisco... Second: Techies will complain that trivial problems of life in the Bay Area are hard because they involve politics. But they should involve politics. So first he's criticizing techies for not fixing the pathologies of Oakland. Then he's saying these problems are rightly the domain of politics. So what's the problem? Those are political problems, should be left to politicians, and techies are doing exactly that. Finally: In a world where everyone uses computers and software, we need to exercise democratic control over that software. Aha - so first techies are not solving problems that the author thinks they should be leaving to politicians. From this he draws the conclusion that techies - currently doing a great job of solving the problems within their domain - should bow down and submit to control by the politicians who failed to solve the local problems he cares about. Another choice line: If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else? Why would we do something that benefits far away humans over something that benefits nearby humans? Don't help those foreigners (or people in NY)! Build a wall! Trump 2016! (Same idea, just directed at a slightly different target.)
- hartez 10y ago
  > Why would we do something that benefits far away humans over something that benefits nearby humans? Don't help those foreigners (or people in NY)! Build a wall! Trump 2016! (Same idea, just directed at a slightly different target.) You've misunderstood his sentence. He's not saying that we should prefer fixing things locally to fixing things globally. He's asking why we should believe that the tech elite can improve life on a global scale when they can't even improve it on a local scale.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    If that's the question, the answer is pretty clear: we should believe they can do it because they already have and continue to do it every day. And in spite of what the author claims, there are even solving some political problems. For instance, observe how Uber has improved governance in most major cities. AirBnB seems to be taking a crack at it too: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/airbnb-is-suing-hometeown-san-francisco-to-block-rental-rules http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/airbnb-is-...
chflags 10y ago
"We started out collecting this information by accident, as part of our project to automate everything, but soon realized that it had economic value." Is he saying the end results of the project to [insert stated project purpose here], e.g., "to automate everything", "to organize the world's information", etc., did not have enough economic value to sustain the project... and hence founders were "forced" to collect data as a means to generate value? Here's another version: pre-Google search engines realized they could sell ad space, i.e., paid placements, e.g., to auto manufacturers. Once the advertising industry became involved, then collecting data about the network's users, if one could do it, was a no-brainer. "... really it's just the regular old world from before, with a bunch of microphones and keyboards and flat screens sticking out of it." Not sure that young people who worship Silicon Valley want to believe this, and why should they? The author always makes a good case for the potential long term consequences of the so-called "changes to the world" that many programmers are adamantly pursuing. Maybe these programmers are not changing the world. Maybe they're just doing what others already did in the past, on a smaller scale, without the benefit of cheap electronics.
- forgottenpass 10y ago
  Is he saying the end results of the project [...] did not have enough economic value to sustain the project... and hence founders were "forced" to collect data as a means to generate value? I don't see any reason to read that into his speech. We're used to the "you pay or are the product" dichotomy being propagandized at us as the reason for accepting surveillance business models. I don't see that here. I see it more like describing the realization that there is an(other) revenue stream staring the creator in the face.
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dtornabene 10y ago
what a shame noone is actually responding to the substantive points here. This is without a doubt one of the better "programmer describes politics from a programmers point of view" to turn up here.
macrael 10y ago
The fundamental mistake of thinking that technology alone can solve all human problems (is this what technological liberationists believe? Great name.) runs deep in this community and comes, I think, of worshipping intelligence. The entire concept of all powerful AI that must be feared or at least obeyed springs from this trap. But imagine when we create this AI and ask it "how should I live" and it replies "eat better and exercise" how will its intelligence convince me to change my ways better than my doctor does today? How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? These human problems seem tied up more with the all too human traits of will and desire and pride and... Intelligence? It's far down the list. Politics, for better and for worse, is our system for granting humans the power people here seem to think AI will be able to take on its own. I think part of Maciej's message is: stop waiting.
- bcoates 10y ago
  You're thinking that the evil AI will be some sort of nagging scold, "eat your vegetables or I'll tell you to eat your vegetables again". It's more likely that it'll be like Gawker: "eat your vegetables or I'll send an angry mob of idiots to burn your house down"
  - onion2k 10y ago
    Why will it be one rather than the other?
  - webmaven 10y ago
    I suspect an effective tactic would be 'eat your vegetables, or I will start automatically ordering meatless and reduced calorie versions of everything'.
- euyyn 10y ago
  > But imagine when we create this AI and ask it "how should I live" and it replies "eat better and exercise" how will its intelligence convince me to change my ways better than my doctor does today? By following up with "how to I motivate myself to change my ways"? Or, better, by its answer already taking that into account. > How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? Not necessarily more smarts, but better tech means more affordable connectivity and education, and better education too. It also raises the standard of living, which leads to more trade, which in turn is an incentive for peace. Sure, it won't bring absolute peace. But it'll bring more peace. > Politics, for better and for worse, is our system for granting humans the power people here seem to think AI will be able to take on its own. Politics has existed since the dawn of man. Politics we like, though, only after the industrial revolution.
robohamburger 10y ago
I think the best thing that ever happened to me was realizing the thesis of this article and getting some humility. I used to be firmly in the software will eat the world camp. Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside. Getting to know the world around you and people who are different than you will make you a better person and a better engineer.
- Nav_Panel 10y ago
  > Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside. I agree with the last two points, but why travel? Wasn't one of the points in the article that we're so busy trying to think broadly -- by going to faraway places and dreaming of general case solutions -- that we reject the small-scale case of the people already around you? Unless you mean travel to Bayview... From the article: > I am very suspicious of attempts to change the world that can't first work on a local scale. If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else? ... We should be skeptical of promises to revolutionize transportation from people who can't fix BART, or have never taken BART.
  - laughinghan 10y ago
    The point in the article about thinking too broadly is a subpoint of the larger point about the hubris of believing we can solve faraway problems that we've never seen up close. Both focusing on the local problems that we can see up close, and getting out there and seeing those faraway problems up close, could arguably be antidotes to that hubris.
thenobsta 10y ago
tldr: learn from history Apropos as YC looks into giving everyone money and designing cities from first principles.
- tim333 10y ago
  Designing cities has a long history going back to about 4000 years ago in Egypt. I imagine the YC folks will be aware. Basic income less so though there are precedents in those with inherited incomes and the landed gentry.
dcole2929 10y ago
I think what he describes here is a fundamental flaw of human nature. We now have overwhelming evidence that humans are really good at taking incomplete, disparate pieces of information and coalescing them into a whole to reach a conclusion. We generally infer very well. The problem is that the conclusions we reach are also generally wrong. Given a very specific type of domain with deterministic answers (e.g. most engineering fields) we are able to reach more often than not correct answers. And the rate at which we are correct has only increased (nearing 100%). However, when it comes to the messy domains in which we live we are still pretty poor. Our instincts are generally good enough to keep us alive (don't walk down this dark alley, that guy looks shady, etc) but much more than that and we suck. I for one am deeply uncomfortable with people training AI systems to form the kind of decisions we as humans do. These systems may have more information to go on but if it's using the same methods that we do, how accurate can it be? Thanks to the rapid advancement of the last 150 years we have quickly reached a place where society's technological knowledge and ability far exceeds our moral ability to reason about it, and it's implications. We are like an untrained child with a gun. Yeah we may understand the mechanics behind pulling the trigger and how it works but we don't yet have the maturity to understand when we should, and what truly happens when we do.
- fredfoobar42 10y ago
  There's this attitude that because computer work on pure logic, anything a computer does must therefore be logical and rational. The problem is that the humans who program the computers will often encode their own illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed logic. The computer is not logical and rational, it just follows instructions well. If the instructions are illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed---but executable---the computer will follow them. And when they spit out a illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed result... well, it must be logical, rational, unbiased, and unflawed, because the computer is purely logical, rational, unbiased, and unflawed. We code our biases into the algorithms we use every day. They inherit our flaws. The sooner we all wake up to this, the better.
  - gshubert17 10y ago
    > We code our biases into the algorithms we use every day. They inherit our flaws. The sooner we all wake up to this, the better. And our values. And assumptions. In Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" the homicidal behavior of HAL was ultimately based on the conflict between his secret instructions and what he was able to share with the human crew, Bowman and Poole.
unabridged 10y ago
>How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? Less religion (or at least less true believers). In addition to intelligence, technology can also increase the comfort of everyday life. Comfort + rational thinking = less likely to risk your life killing others.
- fredfoobar42 10y ago
  You'd think that, but there's been a huge swath of engineering school graduates joining ISIS and similar organizations. It's not that ISIS is recruiting them, something about engineering students [makes them more likely to join ISIS](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/17/this-is-the-group-thats-surprisingly-prone-to-violent-extremism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/1...)
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    The engineering school of the university I work at is plastered with posters urging students it's not too late just make the call don't make the jump. If it weren't so tragic it would be funny that it's the only college that seems to have that problem So I guess ISIS appeals to the ones who would rather go out with a bang.
    - mjevans 10y ago
      I was thinking about this the other night: In the world of an RPG why does my character go off and become an Adventurer instead of living a quiet, humble, out of the way life? In that fantasy world the normal quality of life isn't that good, and if you're just sitting around you're probably going to be picked off by some a-hole before natural old age. In that fantasy world if you go out and TRY to have adventure your hard work, blood, and tears usually result in a better outcome. You did good, you get good rewards. I think the real reason our society feels so vulnerable to 'radicalization' is that there is a distinct breakdown in 'the dream'; in the belief that you can put forth work and actually be rewarded. Or even in the ability to take that risk without starving/growing ill and ending up in a poverty spiral. The people demand fulfillment, and meaningful lives; they want dignity and respect for their contribution to the whole.
marcosdumay 10y ago
> There is also prior art in attempts at achieving immortality, limitless wealth, and Galactic domination. Hum... Except for very primitive ones, based on religion, I actually can not think of any such previous attempt. Does anybody knows what the author is talking about?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I think the tone is a little sarcastic, if you attenuate the claims a little bit, it would include projects like the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, etc.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Ok, maybe, but those have no relation at all with creating technology that will improve people's life. If this is what the author thinks as a joke, I should grant less effort in understand his other points. Before you pointed that, I was expecting them to somehow relate with the Industrial Revolution and the exploitation fo the New World. Those are much more appealing metaphors, but I couldn't get anything that we'd be refusing to learn from them.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      They were both about improving life through technology! It just happens they missed other important perspectives. That's part of what the talk is about, people with new found powers not sufficiently considering the consequences of their actions. I would also say that the World Wars in fact do relate to the industrial revolution, as part of the reason they were so horrible was the new found power provided by scientific industry.
carapace 10y ago
I just want to point out that "moral economy" is an oxymoron.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Adam Smith at least wrote "Wealth of Nations" after writing "Theory of Moral Sentiments" to drill down into the morality of money. His point in it is that capitalism is a moral improvement on Mercantilism.
  - carapace 10y ago
    Yeah I think I failed to communicate my point. In the Bhagavad Gita (chapter 2 verse 49) there's a statement to the effect that those who work for the fruits of their effort are misers.
stcredzero 10y ago
The reality is, opting out of surveillance capitalism means opting out of much of modern life. There is now a surveillance online politics built on top of "surveillance capitalism."
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
This reminds me of the Adam Curtis film "All Cared For By Machines Of Loving Grace." Indeed, "eat your vegetables" itself is as much an environmental idea as a nutritional position. Curtis attributes environmentalism in its present form to systems-think grounded in the computer industry. The deep irony is that computers themselves arose from the ashes of Bertand Russel's (failed) attempt to systemically automate mathematics. I'm always amazed that techies, who have to deal with the fragility and foibles of computers, aren't leading the charge to be skeptical of this sort of thing. Of course, the incentives are not aligned with that.
Decade 10y ago
My problem with these sorts of screeds is that they treat all techies as complicit. It’s really a problem of big tech companies, and the big tech companies have so much power because there is money in it, and they have the money because humans choose it. We individually chose to give our freedoms to huge corporations with unfriendly designs for our lives. It’s not like we couldn’t see it coming. Stallman, for example, has always argued against use of Facebook and similar services.[0] It’s just that it’s much easier to run centralized services, so they improve, they create better user experiences, and they draw in even more cash, while decentralized Free Software struggles to get enough attention to stay in business. I, for one, didn’t get a Facebook until a critical mass of my friends got one, and I didn’t get a LinkedIn until a government agency refused to give me service without one. I tried to avoid the surveillance state, but it’s very difficult to function in society without it. Especially if you don’t have some sort of fan club to support you, like Stallman has. [0]https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html
- garysieling 10y ago
  While it doesn't directly address how to fix this type of problem, I found the book "Moral Man and Immoral Society" to be a helpful discussion of how we make ethical decisions individually vs. in groups (the thesis being justice is nearly impossible to achieve in group actions).
- fatbird 10y ago
  You say "because humans choose it" as if it counters the author's point, but in your last paragraph you perfectly describe how we don't freely choose it; instead, some happily choose it and others must later surrender to it as a condition of normal participation in modern life. This is "choice" only in a meaninglessly narrow sense. Maciej's point is that we blithely build these systems because TECHNOLOGY--we lionize the builders of these systems--that we later complain about being forced to participate in because they've been successful. This is the circumstance that our refusal to engage in politics creates for us and everyone else, and we bear responsibility for that.
- laughinghan 10y ago
  If you believe a large fraction of techies are not complicit and in fact are very against these unfriendly designs, then do you agree with the solution proposed by the author—just like the solution to the problem of unsafe working conditions—namely, regulation? After all, if a large fraction of techies are against this, there's political will, right? Sure, in your worldview the big tech companies have too much money and power, but why would it be so much more asymmetrical than the unsafe factory days as to require a qualitatively different solution? > I tried to avoid the surveillance state, but it’s very difficult to function in society without it. The author made this point, too, and connected it with the point about unsafe working conditions and how it is theoretically opt-in but in practice a highly-discouraged opt-out, which I thought was poignant, especially because it suggests an easy-to-understand (though difficult-to-implement) solution: regulation. Note that he's not just handwaving in the magic word "regulation", he has a concrete proposal for six specific, privacy-protecting rules: http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you.htm#six_fixes http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you....
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I think Maciej's mind is getting seriously poisoned by the hatred towards SV. I understand the anger - hell, I abhor the ad-driven tech too, I've stopped believing in the startup marketing long time ago. But just because companies say bullshit to make money doesn't mean the tech doesn't work, or that technologists are worse than normal people because they use their brains to solve complex problems. This, and previous talks start to sound less like pointing out existing problems and more like anti-intellectualism. In Maciej's recent talks I feel a sense of defeat that he's trying to mask with calls to actions and thinly-veiled insults towards programmers. Like the constant references to politics - if there's one thing true in this world, it's that the politics is one of the least cost-effective way of solving anything one can imagine. If people want to do tech, or science, instead of politics, maybe it's not because they're stupid, but because they want to do something effective? After all, it's not politicians who fed the world, it was Haber & Bosch. It wasn't environmentalists who saved whales from extinction, it was whoever invented that synthetic whale-oil substitute. While I accept I might be a bit technophilic, I think some of Maciej's recent comments border on ridiculousness. Criticizing not just Google per se, but the very effort at curing death? It's not hubris. It's something we should have been focused on doing for at least past few hundred years. If it takes rich SV guys to finally do something about it, I think instead calling them full of hubris one should instead ask, why it was them who finally started tackling this problem in a way that has at least a chance of being effective. Another point - Maciej said that "really it's just the regular old world from before, (...) [and] it has the same old problems.". Well, people don't change (fast enough), their problems don't change. But the world looks very different than it looked few hundred, or few thousand years ago. So what changed, if not people? I say, technology. Personally, I'm getting more and more convinced that social changes are caused by changes in technology landscape, not the other way around. I.e. we didn't have liberal democracy 500 years ago not because we were stupid then, but because technologies that can support it - like the printing press, effective firearms, etc. - did not exist or did not yet reach the point of ubiquity. So yeah, daily bashing of advertisers and anti-social startups is fun. But let's not pour the baby, the soup and the whole medicine cabinet out with the bathwater.
- laughinghan 10y ago
  ... curing death? It's not hubris. It's something we should have been focused on doing for at least past few hundred years. If it takes rich SV guys to finally do something about it, I think instead calling them full of hubris one should instead ask, why it was them who finally started tackling this problem ... I totally appreciate what you're saying. You're saying "the rich SV guys are right, why haven't we been trying to cure death? Obviously curing death would be amazing! Death is awful!". But the fact that people whose expertise is primarily in software, entrepreneurship, and/or investing, who all have, I think we can safely say, limited experience as biology researchers, the fact that these people are making predictions about when death will be cured and judgements as to which approaches are most promising, predictions and judgements that are not deferred to actual biologists who study senescence...there are of course upsides to such hubris (e.g. being unaffected by perverse incentives in the academic system in which biologists traditionally work), but surely you can see that there is hubris here? In spite of all the caveats like how academia sucks, at the end of the day, the actual biologists who study senescence are still understood to be the experts on the feasibility of immortality. Making any kind of prediction or judgement call that isn't deferring to the acknowledged experts is incontrovertibly arrogant. To be clear, we wouldn't be leveling this criticism if "rich SV guys" were simply increasing financial support for aging research. There are undoubtedly controversies around actors raising money for medical research (e.g. because it arguably results in disproportionate funding for diseases of old rich white people), but nobody criticizes those celebrities of hubris, either. This criticism is because there are people in Silicon Valley who earnestly, genuinely believe that because they're hackers not biologists, they're gonna cure death by hacking biology. Even if you believe they're right, how can you deny the arrogance? ... finally started tackling this problem in a way that has at least a chance of being effective. And this part is why this hubris is harmful: the dismissal of the efforts of anyone other than the "rich SV guys" of even having "at least a chance of being effective". politics is one of the least cost-effective way of solving *anything* one can imagine Which way of solving institutionalized slavery, or women's suffrage, or totalitarianism do you think would've been more "cost-effective" than politics? At least one of those was directly caused by technology, and solved by politics and its siblings, economics and war.
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bcheung 10y ago
> Machine learning is like money laundering for bias. Bahaha! The entire article seems to have a Luddite like hatred for anything tech. > The response of the tech world to death has been enthusiastic. We are going to fix it. Google Ventures, for example, is seriously funding research into immortality. Their head VC will call you a "deathist" for pointing out that this is delusional. Such fantasies of control come with a dark side. Someone wants to cure dying and you ridicule them? How is that helpful? Seems like the exact opposite of helping out the rest of the world. It also seems to suggest that creating and maximizing leverage is harmful to everyone else. > We pretend that by maximizing our convenience and productivity, we're hastening the day when we finally make life better for all those other people. We're not pretending. Technology is one of the primary means of advancing standard of living. Sure the inventors get a significant advantage in the meanwhile that can cause gentrification, but in the long term nothing has done more for the human race than technology arising from the selfishness of people wanting to better their lives.

241 points by jmduke 10y ago

This article brings up an important source of bias that tech people risk - that we overuse models from programming when thinking about other aspects of the world. We should be learning alternative models from other subjects like economics, philosophy, sociology, etc so that we can improve our mental toolbox and avoid thinking everything works like a software system. I'd say that another related source of bias is that we are surrounded by people who think like us. It's a shame though, that the article dismisses without much explicit justification risk from artificial intelligence and the problem of death. When I first encountered these ideas, I dismissed them because they seemed weird. But if you read the arguments for caring you realise that they are actually well thought-out. For AI risk, check out http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolu... and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategie.... For an argument for tackling death, checkout http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html. Also, there's a clear answer to 'If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else?' -- because the tech elite live in a rich society where most of the fundamental problems (e.g. infectious disease control, widespread dollar-a-day level poverty, access to education) have been solved. The remaining problems are much harder and we should focus on problems where our resources can go further - e.g. in helping the global poor. We should also work on important problems that we have a lot of influence over, such as risks from artificial intelligence and surveillance technology.

Chris2048 10y ago
> overuse models from programming when thinking about other aspects of the world Arguably we already do this when we try to map problem-domains to class-hierarchy structures (OOP)... When/if we see these flaws and start using general data structures to model the world, we'll have moved forward...
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forgotuser 10y ago
>we should focus on problems where our resources can go further - e.g. in helping the global poor. I'm not convinced that the right people to help the "global poor" are Silicon Valley technologists. Scientifically-minded entrepreneurs focused on profit but with idealistic rhetoric attempting to "help" cultures they know nothing about has, historically, not worked out great.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Colin Woodward wrote "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (ISBN-13: 978-0143122029)" and basically, the people who settled the center of the tech industry were Yankee Progressives, the sort who send third sons to be missionaries around the world. You have to accept the premise that somehow, the past stains present-day thinking more than is easily explainable, but this does not stop people who have demographically interesting professions from using this sort of thing.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  From over here in India it looks pretty good. In spite of the radically different culture, Uber has improved transportation. It turns out putting Indians into a car and charging them money works a lot like doing the same for Americans. Facebook and Whatsapp have improved communication. At work, Slack, Salesforce and Jira work the same as any western office. Why, exactly, do you think other cultures and the global poor can't use SV technologies?
  - forgotuser 10y ago
    All those technologies were first developed in the US, for an American target audience, then exported to other countries. Other things also developed in the West and then exported: electricity, vaccines, et cetera. I agree that that's generally been a good thing. The parent comment, however, seemed to imply that technologists should focus on "solving global poverty" instead of solving local problems. This represents a fundamental shift, because at that point SV technologists are attempting to solve problems they personally do not have experience with. All the examples you provide solved problems that SV itself had- transportation, communication, etc.
pdkl95 10y ago
> We should be learning alternative models In addition to learning models from other subjects, we also need to understand that the complexity and often chaotic nature of human behavior might mean some subject can only be modeled superficially. > economics Varoufakis[1] and Blyth[2] argue that it might be impossible to create models of the economy. They both warn that there is a seductive quality to math, but that "elegance" is an oversimplification that can easily unravel when given the chaos of the real world. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AUAIzciLE&t=1355 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AUAIzciLE&t=1355 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmWbkPezgtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmWbkPezgtU
- gshubert17 10y ago
  It is certainly impossible to create realistic models of the economy, if one's economics is based on assumptions of linearity and equilibrium. Mark Buchanan's book _Forecast_ [0] makes the case for more realistic models, using techniques from the natural sciences, that would have better predictive value. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Forecast-Physics-Meteorology-Sciences-Economics/dp/1608198537 https://www.amazon.com/Forecast-Physics-Meteorology-Sciences...
  - xyience 10y ago
    Is he rich from his superior models?
    - gshubert17 10y ago
      Good question. The book's blurb says he is a science writer; I don't know how rich he is. I guess it's easier to point out the flaws in linear, equilibrium models, and to point to better results in, say, meteorology, from using better models based on different assumptions, than it is to construct and validate completely new economic models.
igk 10y ago
You pushed almost ALL of my buttons...note that I on every point I almost agree with your points (which of course meant I have to nitpick them:). 1. I agree that it is important to broaden your horizon and not blindly think everything works like software. But IMO, not enough people learn to attack problems like a good hacker. I'd argue that for understanding and modeling,the fundamental principles that drive hard sciences ( best discussed by Karl Popper and Feynman in my opinion) are as of yet the only methods which have proved themselves. For doing and building complicated things, (software) engineers have developed a way of zipping between layers of abstractions which is again in this domain of fundamental principles, but less fleshed out. Economics and other "soft" sciences is then (when its done well) about properly applying these principles from hard science and engineering to domains with incredibly scarce data and no real way to do experiments(because, you know, ethics). History and other "exploratory" sciences is then about gathering more data and cleaning it. And finally, philosophy and the arts are about pushing the boundaries of our imagination and to inspire us, so we can apply all of those other tools to new domains and cross fertilize. 2. To AI Risk: I said it before, i say it again, I am incredibly disappointed in the current AI risk movement. There is way to much focus on the vague "tail risk" of a rogue AI (be it by chance of by ill will) and some sort of "paperclip" scenario, and almost no mention of the very real, very right now structural risk of continued wealth concentration, mass surveillance (which is where we agree) and mass unemployment. The tail risk in my opinion is negligible, due to simple physical constraints computing faces right now, and to the fact that we have EMP. An actual AI apocalypse just isn't going to happen. And even if you handwave that with "tail risk"/rogue actors, then I ask: why not go after bioweapons? They are much easier (since we know they can work with our current tech, unlike AI) and about as dangerous. Now, the structural problems will combine with demographical change, a regress from the brief period of increased equality (and freedom) and other factors. That stuff is happening right now. There are enough resources pointing out how many jobs will simply be made redundant,yet there are only some movements talking about UBI and other schemes to move to this post-work society. Disproportionately more noise is made about the scary death robots. 3. Death: I hope research into immortality, healthy aging (i.e. "dying with a young body at 70" ) and the likes continue. But it is very much a first world problem, nay, a millionaires and above problem. I don't buy the argument of stopping death being infinitively important on account of if making every other intervention more important. A lot of the current problems in the world are artificial (or at least not mandated by the laws of physics) and due to too much power in the hand of too few, without checks and balances. Let us fix that first, then make our overlords immortal. Tangentially, there was a great article+ discussion on HN here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9523231) on the topic of Peter Thiel and his "libertarian future" I apologize for going into rant mode, I hope I managed to make it somewhat congruent

pron 10y ago

It is ironic that the people most qualified to grasp the problem of essential, irreducible complexity are software developers. That many don't shows that something very fundamental in the underpinning of computer science has been lost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11932963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11932963

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guard-of-terra 10y ago

Hidden in the article is an example how moralizing destroys soul: > Abortion has been illegal in Poland for some time, but the governing party wants to tighten restrictions on abortion by investigating every miscarriage as a potential crime. One day, you are "pro life", and the next day, you are happy to harrass people in terrible life situation.

danharaj 10y ago
The way I interpret these contradictions is that words in ideology are largely instrumental. They achieve a goal that is seldom stated explicitly. That's how yu get aporia like pro-life bombings of abortion clinics and people promulgating family values that refuse to recognize certain families.
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  My point is that they pay with their soul (or you can call it "integrity"), up front, and then maybe achieve a questionable goal.
  - droopyEyelids 10y ago
    Possibly. An alternative explanation is that the stated goal (reducing abortion) wasn't the actual goal. For example, if controlling/subjugating women was the actual goal, then more actions taken in the context of 'pro-life' activism makes sense.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      It's hard to disentangle subconscious and conscious goals, but the goal of proscriptions against adultery and other reproductive mores usually have a foundation in primogeniture - the practice of passing land and property on to the eldest son. Robin Hanson has his "Farmer v. Forager" framework to classify many things about which people disagree with respect to social ... policy. I don't think anyone who isn't a bit ... off can openly promote subjugating women for its own sake; so it's a better story at least if there's a more rational explanation.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

While I can certainly detect a bunch of content-free mood affiliation designed to appeal to those who dislike technological liberationists, I can't tell what the point of this article is. First: In the real world, this has led to a pathology where the tech sector maximizes its own comfort. You don't have to go far to see this. Hop on BART after the conference and take a look at Oakland, or take a stroll through downtown San Francisco... Second: Techies will complain that trivial problems of life in the Bay Area are hard because they involve politics. But they should involve politics. So first he's criticizing techies for not fixing the pathologies of Oakland. Then he's saying these problems are rightly the domain of politics. So what's the problem? Those are political problems, should be left to politicians, and techies are doing exactly that. Finally: In a world where everyone uses computers and software, we need to exercise democratic control over that software. Aha - so first techies are not solving problems that the author thinks they should be leaving to politicians. From this he draws the conclusion that techies - currently doing a great job of solving the problems within their domain - should bow down and submit to control by the politicians who failed to solve the local problems he cares about. Another choice line: If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else? Why would we do something that benefits far away humans over something that benefits nearby humans? Don't help those foreigners (or people in NY)! Build a wall! Trump 2016! (Same idea, just directed at a slightly different target.)

hartez 10y ago
> Why would we do something that benefits far away humans over something that benefits nearby humans? Don't help those foreigners (or people in NY)! Build a wall! Trump 2016! (Same idea, just directed at a slightly different target.) You've misunderstood his sentence. He's not saying that we should prefer fixing things locally to fixing things globally. He's asking why we should believe that the tech elite can improve life on a global scale when they can't even improve it on a local scale.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If that's the question, the answer is pretty clear: we should believe they can do it because they already have and continue to do it every day. And in spite of what the author claims, there are even solving some political problems. For instance, observe how Uber has improved governance in most major cities. AirBnB seems to be taking a crack at it too: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/airbnb-is-suing-hometeown-san-francisco-to-block-rental-rules http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/airbnb-is-...

chflags 10y ago

"We started out collecting this information by accident, as part of our project to automate everything, but soon realized that it had economic value." Is he saying the end results of the project to [insert stated project purpose here], e.g., "to automate everything", "to organize the world's information", etc., did not have enough economic value to sustain the project... and hence founders were "forced" to collect data as a means to generate value? Here's another version: pre-Google search engines realized they could sell ad space, i.e., paid placements, e.g., to auto manufacturers. Once the advertising industry became involved, then collecting data about the network's users, if one could do it, was a no-brainer. "... really it's just the regular old world from before, with a bunch of microphones and keyboards and flat screens sticking out of it." Not sure that young people who worship Silicon Valley want to believe this, and why should they? The author always makes a good case for the potential long term consequences of the so-called "changes to the world" that many programmers are adamantly pursuing. Maybe these programmers are not changing the world. Maybe they're just doing what others already did in the past, on a smaller scale, without the benefit of cheap electronics.

forgottenpass 10y ago
Is he saying the end results of the project [...] did not have enough economic value to sustain the project... and hence founders were "forced" to collect data as a means to generate value? I don't see any reason to read that into his speech. We're used to the "you pay or are the product" dichotomy being propagandized at us as the reason for accepting surveillance business models. I don't see that here. I see it more like describing the realization that there is an(other) revenue stream staring the creator in the face.

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dtornabene 10y ago

what a shame noone is actually responding to the substantive points here. This is without a doubt one of the better "programmer describes politics from a programmers point of view" to turn up here.

macrael 10y ago

The fundamental mistake of thinking that technology alone can solve all human problems (is this what technological liberationists believe? Great name.) runs deep in this community and comes, I think, of worshipping intelligence. The entire concept of all powerful AI that must be feared or at least obeyed springs from this trap. But imagine when we create this AI and ask it "how should I live" and it replies "eat better and exercise" how will its intelligence convince me to change my ways better than my doctor does today? How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? These human problems seem tied up more with the all too human traits of will and desire and pride and... Intelligence? It's far down the list. Politics, for better and for worse, is our system for granting humans the power people here seem to think AI will be able to take on its own. I think part of Maciej's message is: stop waiting.

bcoates 10y ago
You're thinking that the evil AI will be some sort of nagging scold, "eat your vegetables or I'll tell you to eat your vegetables again". It's more likely that it'll be like Gawker: "eat your vegetables or I'll send an angry mob of idiots to burn your house down"
- onion2k 10y ago
  Why will it be one rather than the other?
- webmaven 10y ago
  I suspect an effective tactic would be 'eat your vegetables, or I will start automatically ordering meatless and reduced calorie versions of everything'.
euyyn 10y ago
> But imagine when we create this AI and ask it "how should I live" and it replies "eat better and exercise" how will its intelligence convince me to change my ways better than my doctor does today? By following up with "how to I motivate myself to change my ways"? Or, better, by its answer already taking that into account. > How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? Not necessarily more smarts, but better tech means more affordable connectivity and education, and better education too. It also raises the standard of living, which leads to more trade, which in turn is an incentive for peace. Sure, it won't bring absolute peace. But it'll bring more peace. > Politics, for better and for worse, is our system for granting humans the power people here seem to think AI will be able to take on its own. Politics has existed since the dawn of man. Politics we like, though, only after the industrial revolution.

robohamburger 10y ago

I think the best thing that ever happened to me was realizing the thesis of this article and getting some humility. I used to be firmly in the software will eat the world camp. Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside. Getting to know the world around you and people who are different than you will make you a better person and a better engineer.

Nav_Panel 10y ago
> Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside. I agree with the last two points, but why travel? Wasn't one of the points in the article that we're so busy trying to think broadly -- by going to faraway places and dreaming of general case solutions -- that we reject the small-scale case of the people already around you? Unless you mean travel to Bayview... From the article: > I am very suspicious of attempts to change the world that can't first work on a local scale. If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else? ... We should be skeptical of promises to revolutionize transportation from people who can't fix BART, or have never taken BART.
- laughinghan 10y ago
  The point in the article about thinking too broadly is a subpoint of the larger point about the hubris of believing we can solve faraway problems that we've never seen up close. Both focusing on the local problems that we can see up close, and getting out there and seeing those faraway problems up close, could arguably be antidotes to that hubris.

thenobsta 10y ago

tldr: learn from history Apropos as YC looks into giving everyone money and designing cities from first principles.

tim333 10y ago
Designing cities has a long history going back to about 4000 years ago in Egypt. I imagine the YC folks will be aware. Basic income less so though there are precedents in those with inherited incomes and the landed gentry.

dcole2929 10y ago

I think what he describes here is a fundamental flaw of human nature. We now have overwhelming evidence that humans are really good at taking incomplete, disparate pieces of information and coalescing them into a whole to reach a conclusion. We generally infer very well. The problem is that the conclusions we reach are also generally wrong. Given a very specific type of domain with deterministic answers (e.g. most engineering fields) we are able to reach more often than not correct answers. And the rate at which we are correct has only increased (nearing 100%). However, when it comes to the messy domains in which we live we are still pretty poor. Our instincts are generally good enough to keep us alive (don't walk down this dark alley, that guy looks shady, etc) but much more than that and we suck. I for one am deeply uncomfortable with people training AI systems to form the kind of decisions we as humans do. These systems may have more information to go on but if it's using the same methods that we do, how accurate can it be? Thanks to the rapid advancement of the last 150 years we have quickly reached a place where society's technological knowledge and ability far exceeds our moral ability to reason about it, and it's implications. We are like an untrained child with a gun. Yeah we may understand the mechanics behind pulling the trigger and how it works but we don't yet have the maturity to understand when we should, and what truly happens when we do.

fredfoobar42 10y ago
There's this attitude that because computer work on pure logic, anything a computer does must therefore be logical and rational. The problem is that the humans who program the computers will often encode their own illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed logic. The computer is not logical and rational, it just follows instructions well. If the instructions are illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed---but executable---the computer will follow them. And when they spit out a illogical, irrational, biased, and flawed result... well, it must be logical, rational, unbiased, and unflawed, because the computer is purely logical, rational, unbiased, and unflawed. We code our biases into the algorithms we use every day. They inherit our flaws. The sooner we all wake up to this, the better.
- gshubert17 10y ago
  > We code our biases into the algorithms we use every day. They inherit our flaws. The sooner we all wake up to this, the better. And our values. And assumptions. In Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" the homicidal behavior of HAL was ultimately based on the conflict between his secret instructions and what he was able to share with the human crew, Bowman and Poole.

unabridged 10y ago

>How will more smarts give us peace in the Middle East? Less religion (or at least less true believers). In addition to intelligence, technology can also increase the comfort of everyday life. Comfort + rational thinking = less likely to risk your life killing others.

fredfoobar42 10y ago
You'd think that, but there's been a huge swath of engineering school graduates joining ISIS and similar organizations. It's not that ISIS is recruiting them, something about engineering students [makes them more likely to join ISIS](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/17/this-is-the-group-thats-surprisingly-prone-to-violent-extremism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/1...)
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  The engineering school of the university I work at is plastered with posters urging students it's not too late just make the call don't make the jump. If it weren't so tragic it would be funny that it's the only college that seems to have that problem So I guess ISIS appeals to the ones who would rather go out with a bang.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    I was thinking about this the other night: In the world of an RPG why does my character go off and become an Adventurer instead of living a quiet, humble, out of the way life? In that fantasy world the normal quality of life isn't that good, and if you're just sitting around you're probably going to be picked off by some a-hole before natural old age. In that fantasy world if you go out and TRY to have adventure your hard work, blood, and tears usually result in a better outcome. You did good, you get good rewards. I think the real reason our society feels so vulnerable to 'radicalization' is that there is a distinct breakdown in 'the dream'; in the belief that you can put forth work and actually be rewarded. Or even in the ability to take that risk without starving/growing ill and ending up in a poverty spiral. The people demand fulfillment, and meaningful lives; they want dignity and respect for their contribution to the whole.

marcosdumay 10y ago

> There is also prior art in attempts at achieving immortality, limitless wealth, and Galactic domination. Hum... Except for very primitive ones, based on religion, I actually can not think of any such previous attempt. Does anybody knows what the author is talking about?

maxerickson 10y ago
I think the tone is a little sarcastic, if you attenuate the claims a little bit, it would include projects like the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, etc.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Ok, maybe, but those have no relation at all with creating technology that will improve people's life. If this is what the author thinks as a joke, I should grant less effort in understand his other points. Before you pointed that, I was expecting them to somehow relate with the Industrial Revolution and the exploitation fo the New World. Those are much more appealing metaphors, but I couldn't get anything that we'd be refusing to learn from them.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    They were both about improving life through technology! It just happens they missed other important perspectives. That's part of what the talk is about, people with new found powers not sufficiently considering the consequences of their actions. I would also say that the World Wars in fact do relate to the industrial revolution, as part of the reason they were so horrible was the new found power provided by scientific industry.

carapace 10y ago

I just want to point out that "moral economy" is an oxymoron.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Adam Smith at least wrote "Wealth of Nations" after writing "Theory of Moral Sentiments" to drill down into the morality of money. His point in it is that capitalism is a moral improvement on Mercantilism.
- carapace 10y ago
  Yeah I think I failed to communicate my point. In the Bhagavad Gita (chapter 2 verse 49) there's a statement to the effect that those who work for the fruits of their effort are misers.

stcredzero 10y ago

The reality is, opting out of surveillance capitalism means opting out of much of modern life. There is now a surveillance online politics built on top of "surveillance capitalism."

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

This reminds me of the Adam Curtis film "All Cared For By Machines Of Loving Grace." Indeed, "eat your vegetables" itself is as much an environmental idea as a nutritional position. Curtis attributes environmentalism in its present form to systems-think grounded in the computer industry. The deep irony is that computers themselves arose from the ashes of Bertand Russel's (failed) attempt to systemically automate mathematics. I'm always amazed that techies, who have to deal with the fragility and foibles of computers, aren't leading the charge to be skeptical of this sort of thing. Of course, the incentives are not aligned with that.

Decade 10y ago

My problem with these sorts of screeds is that they treat all techies as complicit. It’s really a problem of big tech companies, and the big tech companies have so much power because there is money in it, and they have the money because humans choose it. We individually chose to give our freedoms to huge corporations with unfriendly designs for our lives. It’s not like we couldn’t see it coming. Stallman, for example, has always argued against use of Facebook and similar services.[0] It’s just that it’s much easier to run centralized services, so they improve, they create better user experiences, and they draw in even more cash, while decentralized Free Software struggles to get enough attention to stay in business. I, for one, didn’t get a Facebook until a critical mass of my friends got one, and I didn’t get a LinkedIn until a government agency refused to give me service without one. I tried to avoid the surveillance state, but it’s very difficult to function in society without it. Especially if you don’t have some sort of fan club to support you, like Stallman has. [0]https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html

garysieling 10y ago
While it doesn't directly address how to fix this type of problem, I found the book "Moral Man and Immoral Society" to be a helpful discussion of how we make ethical decisions individually vs. in groups (the thesis being justice is nearly impossible to achieve in group actions).
fatbird 10y ago
You say "because humans choose it" as if it counters the author's point, but in your last paragraph you perfectly describe how we don't freely choose it; instead, some happily choose it and others must later surrender to it as a condition of normal participation in modern life. This is "choice" only in a meaninglessly narrow sense. Maciej's point is that we blithely build these systems because TECHNOLOGY--we lionize the builders of these systems--that we later complain about being forced to participate in because they've been successful. This is the circumstance that our refusal to engage in politics creates for us and everyone else, and we bear responsibility for that.
laughinghan 10y ago
If you believe a large fraction of techies are not complicit and in fact are very against these unfriendly designs, then do you agree with the solution proposed by the author—just like the solution to the problem of unsafe working conditions—namely, regulation? After all, if a large fraction of techies are against this, there's political will, right? Sure, in your worldview the big tech companies have too much money and power, but why would it be so much more asymmetrical than the unsafe factory days as to require a qualitatively different solution? > I tried to avoid the surveillance state, but it’s very difficult to function in society without it. The author made this point, too, and connected it with the point about unsafe working conditions and how it is theoretically opt-in but in practice a highly-discouraged opt-out, which I thought was poignant, especially because it suggests an easy-to-understand (though difficult-to-implement) solution: regulation. Note that he's not just handwaving in the magic word "regulation", he has a concrete proposal for six specific, privacy-protecting rules: http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you.htm#six_fixes http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you....

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I think Maciej's mind is getting seriously poisoned by the hatred towards SV. I understand the anger - hell, I abhor the ad-driven tech too, I've stopped believing in the startup marketing long time ago. But just because companies say bullshit to make money doesn't mean the tech doesn't work, or that technologists are worse than normal people because they use their brains to solve complex problems. This, and previous talks start to sound less like pointing out existing problems and more like anti-intellectualism. In Maciej's recent talks I feel a sense of defeat that he's trying to mask with calls to actions and thinly-veiled insults towards programmers. Like the constant references to politics - if there's one thing true in this world, it's that the politics is one of the least cost-effective way of solving anything one can imagine. If people want to do tech, or science, instead of politics, maybe it's not because they're stupid, but because they want to do something effective? After all, it's not politicians who fed the world, it was Haber & Bosch. It wasn't environmentalists who saved whales from extinction, it was whoever invented that synthetic whale-oil substitute. While I accept I might be a bit technophilic, I think some of Maciej's recent comments border on ridiculousness. Criticizing not just Google per se, but the very effort at curing death? It's not hubris. It's something we should have been focused on doing for at least past few hundred years. If it takes rich SV guys to finally do something about it, I think instead calling them full of hubris one should instead ask, why it was them who finally started tackling this problem in a way that has at least a chance of being effective. Another point - Maciej said that "really it's just the regular old world from before, (...) [and] it has the same old problems.". Well, people don't change (fast enough), their problems don't change. But the world looks very different than it looked few hundred, or few thousand years ago. So what changed, if not people? I say, technology. Personally, I'm getting more and more convinced that social changes are caused by changes in technology landscape, not the other way around. I.e. we didn't have liberal democracy 500 years ago not because we were stupid then, but because technologies that can support it - like the printing press, effective firearms, etc. - did not exist or did not yet reach the point of ubiquity. So yeah, daily bashing of advertisers and anti-social startups is fun. But let's not pour the baby, the soup and the whole medicine cabinet out with the bathwater.

laughinghan 10y ago
... curing death? It's not hubris. It's something we should have been focused on doing for at least past few hundred years. If it takes rich SV guys to finally do something about it, I think instead calling them full of hubris one should instead ask, why it was them who finally started tackling this problem ... I totally appreciate what you're saying. You're saying "the rich SV guys are right, why haven't we been trying to cure death? Obviously curing death would be amazing! Death is awful!". But the fact that people whose expertise is primarily in software, entrepreneurship, and/or investing, who all have, I think we can safely say, limited experience as biology researchers, the fact that these people are making predictions about when death will be cured and judgements as to which approaches are most promising, predictions and judgements that are not deferred to actual biologists who study senescence...there are of course upsides to such hubris (e.g. being unaffected by perverse incentives in the academic system in which biologists traditionally work), but surely you can see that there is hubris here? In spite of all the caveats like how academia sucks, at the end of the day, the actual biologists who study senescence are still understood to be the experts on the feasibility of immortality. Making any kind of prediction or judgement call that isn't deferring to the acknowledged experts is incontrovertibly arrogant. To be clear, we wouldn't be leveling this criticism if "rich SV guys" were simply increasing financial support for aging research. There are undoubtedly controversies around actors raising money for medical research (e.g. because it arguably results in disproportionate funding for diseases of old rich white people), but nobody criticizes those celebrities of hubris, either. This criticism is because there are people in Silicon Valley who earnestly, genuinely believe that because they're hackers not biologists, they're gonna cure death by hacking biology. Even if you believe they're right, how can you deny the arrogance? ... finally started tackling this problem in a way that has at least a chance of being effective. And this part is why this hubris is harmful: the dismissal of the efforts of anyone other than the "rich SV guys" of even having "at least a chance of being effective". politics is one of the least cost-effective way of solving *anything* one can imagine Which way of solving institutionalized slavery, or women's suffrage, or totalitarianism do you think would've been more "cost-effective" than politics? At least one of those was directly caused by technology, and solved by politics and its siblings, economics and war.

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bcheung 10y ago

> Machine learning is like money laundering for bias. Bahaha! The entire article seems to have a Luddite like hatred for anything tech. > The response of the tech world to death has been enthusiastic. We are going to fix it. Google Ventures, for example, is seriously funding research into immortality. Their head VC will call you a "deathist" for pointing out that this is delusional. Such fantasies of control come with a dark side. Someone wants to cure dying and you ridicule them? How is that helpful? Seems like the exact opposite of helping out the rest of the world. It also seems to suggest that creating and maximizing leverage is harmful to everyone else. > We pretend that by maximizing our convenience and productivity, we're hastening the day when we finally make life better for all those other people. We're not pretending. Technology is one of the primary means of advancing standard of living. Sure the inventors get a significant advantage in the meanwhile that can cause gentrification, but in the long term nothing has done more for the human race than technology arising from the selfishness of people wanting to better their lives.