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At the early development stage of new technologies there is a lot of idealism and justified hope that the new and more powerful tools will decidedly improve the
by college_physics 4y ago
At the early development stage of new technologies there is a lot of idealism and justified hope that the new and more powerful tools will decidedly improve the human condition.
Then life happens and things get derailed and sullied. The tech becomes a lever for (geo)political or economic interests and zero or even negative sum games. It evolves in bizzare and unforeseable ways that are quite disconnected from the initial foundational thinking.
Digital tech sixty years since Engelbart has failed in fundamental ways to deliver the goods. We can ignore the obvious dominance of surveillance capitalism that is decidedly the opposite of human augmentation (except for the few lining their pockets).
Even in pure bean counting economic terms there is no productivity benefit from all that tech [0]
[0] https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-to-solve-the-puzzle-of-missing-productivity-growth/ https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-to-solve-the-puzzle...
- pixl97 4y agoWe were filled with optimism, but I think that belied our ignorance. We had a massive increase in the complexity of our machines and we thought this could transfer to things like biology and deep-seated behaviors. Greed wasn't solved by technology and now we realize how technology can make greed even worse. We see that our biology is far more complex than was initially given credit for and there are no easy solutions for a great number of problems like cancer and aging.
- college_physics 4y agoYet there is a fundamental paradox: detecting and de-faanging greedy behavior is something that technology can help with. Both at the educational level and the accounting, tracking and transparency level. Greed doesnt feel intractable. The degree to which it is given free reign is a cultural parameter. Technology can certainly help reward the right behaviors and the that might be the best "augmentation" it could provide