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It is, and for that I apologize. I must admit that I strongly doubted you truly hold this view, and suspected you were just saying it here in order to be argume

It is, and for that I apologize. I must admit that I strongly doubted you truly hold this view, and suspected you were just saying it here in order to be argumentative, but now I see you do. I realize that it is not strictly inconsistent to both take advantage of technology and hold that its net effects are harmful. Even so, it is beside the point - humanity has demonstrably been applying its intelligence to improving technology's capabilities, which is a fact regardless of whether it has been beneficial, and that is enough for it being a candidate measure of machine intelligence. I realize that there's an argument saying that if the machines start improving themselves of their own volition, it would be the beginning of the end for humanity, and I do not think that it can be summarily dismissed. If it turns out to be correct, you would be vindicated! - though neither of us want that.

bmitc 4y ago
I do hold the opinion, and I’m continually working it out and finding information that quantifies it. I at least posted some numbers in an adjacent comment. I know it sounds extreme, but I can’t see any way around it. Stress levels, depression and anxiety, food problems, wealthy inequality and concentration, loneliness, and more are hitting all time highs by no small margin. And a lot of this has occurred over the past 100-200 years. I think that even without further investigation, one has to admit a strong correlation to industrialization. Societal changes, I would argue, are largely driven by technological developments. And this ignores environmental and non-human animal suffering. Orcas in the Pacific Northwest are riddle with toxins and starve directly due to human technology. The waters off the cost of India and Thailand are so hypoxic that fish must swim at the top surface of the water, which has led to dramatic changes in whale feeding behavior. This is again due to technology. Again due to technology, we have decimated forests. These numbers are from memory, but I believe we have decreased worldwide forest coverage from around 75% in the early 1900s to around 25% today (these are rough numbers from memory). The numbers paint a pretty grim picture. Yes, a lot of medical technology is wonderful, but from everything I can see, industrialization is generally not causing harmful trends to go down. The argument isn’t that all technology is bad.

bmitc 4y ago

I do hold the opinion, and I’m continually working it out and finding information that quantifies it. I at least posted some numbers in an adjacent comment. I know it sounds extreme, but I can’t see any way around it. Stress levels, depression and anxiety, food problems, wealthy inequality and concentration, loneliness, and more are hitting all time highs by no small margin. And a lot of this has occurred over the past 100-200 years. I think that even without further investigation, one has to admit a strong correlation to industrialization. Societal changes, I would argue, are largely driven by technological developments. And this ignores environmental and non-human animal suffering. Orcas in the Pacific Northwest are riddle with toxins and starve directly due to human technology. The waters off the cost of India and Thailand are so hypoxic that fish must swim at the top surface of the water, which has led to dramatic changes in whale feeding behavior. This is again due to technology. Again due to technology, we have decimated forests. These numbers are from memory, but I believe we have decreased worldwide forest coverage from around 75% in the early 1900s to around 25% today (these are rough numbers from memory). The numbers paint a pretty grim picture. Yes, a lot of medical technology is wonderful, but from everything I can see, industrialization is generally not causing harmful trends to go down. The argument isn’t that all technology is bad.