3 ms·

"The technocratic illusion is that poverty results from a shortage of expertise, whereas poverty is really about a shortage of rights." William Easterly. I to

by vasco 4y ago

"The technocratic illusion is that poverty results from a shortage of expertise, whereas poverty is really about a shortage of rights." William Easterly. I too wish they'd know more about what they decide on, but really they should already rely on subject matter experts and otherwise I don't think the problem is lack of knowledge, as the quote indicates. It was said in the context of erradicating poverty but I think it applies to these discussions too.

ur-whale 4y ago
> William Easterly. Arguing from authority is nice and all (not), but the problem is not lack of technical expertise in decision makers (no one can reasonably expect a politician to understand modern AI tools), but rather about the decision making process itself. There should be an established process by which such a dumb decision, with - in all likelihood - negative economic implications for the entire country, could be put to rest via a democratic process.
Aromasin 4y ago
I'm not asking for all of our Ministers to be technocrats. They needn't be SMEs. They needn't even be a major player in the industry prior to becoming a politician. But in all honesty, a Technology Minister not having a technical background is like an Education Minister being unable to read or write. I'm not asking for some IEEE fellow with 100s of patent. I'm not even asking for a junior engineer with a couple of years in the industry. Hell, I daren't even ask for someone with a Math A-Level at this point. I'm asking for someone who can string a sentence about technology together, while also understanding a 10th of what they just regurgitated. It's embarrassing watching the leader that is meant to represent our industry go on stage and repeat a babble of buzzwords that they learnt about 4 hours before, in their latest think-tank meeting. That's not leadership. That's bull-shiting, and it stinks.
- vasco 4y ago
  Of course more expertise is better when all else is equal, I thought the quote stood on its own to not be interpreted as asking for less expertise. Rather that the source of the problems is a disregard for people's rights and other more basic failures, than not understanding how an LLM works.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Right. But then, poverty is not the only problem a government wants to address, and Technology Ministry is arguably one that will spend most of its time addressing things other than poverty, at least directly, and this does benefit from expertise.
    - vasco 4y ago
      Everything benefits from expertise, I'm now 3 layers down repeating the same thing. The whole point is that you don't need any tech knowledge to respect the basic ratified human right of access to information. That is all you need to not enact bans on specific websites for your country. Being a good technologist is an advantage to such a position, obviously.

by vasco 4y ago

ur-whale 4y ago

> William Easterly. Arguing from authority is nice and all (not), but the problem is not lack of technical expertise in decision makers (no one can reasonably expect a politician to understand modern AI tools), but rather about the decision making process itself. There should be an established process by which such a dumb decision, with - in all likelihood - negative economic implications for the entire country, could be put to rest via a democratic process.

Aromasin 4y ago

I'm not asking for all of our Ministers to be technocrats. They needn't be SMEs. They needn't even be a major player in the industry prior to becoming a politician. But in all honesty, a Technology Minister not having a technical background is like an Education Minister being unable to read or write. I'm not asking for some IEEE fellow with 100s of patent. I'm not even asking for a junior engineer with a couple of years in the industry. Hell, I daren't even ask for someone with a Math A-Level at this point. I'm asking for someone who can string a sentence about technology together, while also understanding a 10th of what they just regurgitated. It's embarrassing watching the leader that is meant to represent our industry go on stage and repeat a babble of buzzwords that they learnt about 4 hours before, in their latest think-tank meeting. That's not leadership. That's bull-shiting, and it stinks.

vasco 4y ago
Of course more expertise is better when all else is equal, I thought the quote stood on its own to not be interpreted as asking for less expertise. Rather that the source of the problems is a disregard for people's rights and other more basic failures, than not understanding how an LLM works.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Right. But then, poverty is not the only problem a government wants to address, and Technology Ministry is arguably one that will spend most of its time addressing things other than poverty, at least directly, and this does benefit from expertise.
  - vasco 4y ago
    Everything benefits from expertise, I'm now 3 layers down repeating the same thing. The whole point is that you don't need any tech knowledge to respect the basic ratified human right of access to information. That is all you need to not enact bans on specific websites for your country. Being a good technologist is an advantage to such a position, obviously.