3 ms·

Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time

by tgv 3y ago

Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch.

sctb 3y ago
> Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Yes, this is how voices work. > Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. Are you making this argument simply based on the passage of time? I can think of a lot of ideas whose longevity makes 90 years seem a sneeze. > While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. If they share a mindset, would that not be an obvious link? Additionally, this article is drawing a connection not just between Mead and techno-optimists (not the same as tech-bros), but between Mead and both techno-optimism and existential risk. That's sort of what the article's preamble describes as the interesting thing.
- booleandilemma 3y ago
  Why are you so intent on linking this woman to modern tech workers?
dmead 3y ago
I'm a tech bro.
terminous 3y ago
> Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. Plato was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 2000+ years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While both may share a mindset, linking Plato to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. The allegory of the cave still has resonance today. Abstract ideas are timeless. That's the point of abstraction.
- tgv 3y ago
  But Plato gets taught, and these writings by Mead don't. Linking Plato to tech-bros is indeed a stretch.
  - gotorazor 3y ago
    This is kinda how history of ideas work. People just kind of think they think and know things independently from within themselves or something. Historians who study the origins of idea traces them back and make connections to thoughts and ideas of the past. Often, the inheritors of those ideas knows nothing of how they get them and think themselves clever for coming up with them all by themselves.
    - nearbuy 3y ago
      This is unfalsifiable speculation though. I could make that claim about anyone (eg, I could say actually it was H. G. Wells planted the seeds of techno-optimism in the present day AI community) and you would have no way to prove me wrong. Remove Margaret Mead from the timeline and the AI camps today would probably be the exact same. Those are basically the two options with anything in life that's both useful and dangerous: optimism or pessimism, hope or fear.
    - tgv 3y ago
      True, but that trace here is missing. There is no link apart from "Mead said something vaguely utopian", and that doesn't even seem specific for technology. In 1939, technology was not the most threatening thing.
      - BlueTemplar 3y ago
        You're joking, right ? By WW1 already, technology had changed war to the point that it became extremely economically destructive : https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/world-war-i-battlefields-uninhabitable/ https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/world-war-i-battlefie...
  - _glass 3y ago
wolverine876 3y ago
> AI's societal debut in the 1980s The debut would seem to be at least 1968, with HAL9000's starring role in 2001: A Space Odyssey. (If you watch it now, you will see that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick made a film that is right on-target today. Even the most prominent feature of their 1968 fictional AI is its polite, conversational, very human output and input - and some very bad analysis.)

by tgv 3y ago

sctb 3y ago

> Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Yes, this is how voices work. > Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. Are you making this argument simply based on the passage of time? I can think of a lot of ideas whose longevity makes 90 years seem a sneeze. > While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. If they share a mindset, would that not be an obvious link? Additionally, this article is drawing a connection not just between Mead and techno-optimists (not the same as tech-bros), but between Mead and both techno-optimism and existential risk. That's sort of what the article's preamble describes as the interesting thing.

booleandilemma 3y ago
Why are you so intent on linking this woman to modern tech workers?

dmead 3y ago

I'm a tech bro.

terminous 3y ago

> Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. Plato was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long debate. Whatever people were thinking 2000+ years ago, it had already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While both may share a mindset, linking Plato to today's techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. The allegory of the cave still has resonance today. Abstract ideas are timeless. That's the point of abstraction.

tgv 3y ago
But Plato gets taught, and these writings by Mead don't. Linking Plato to tech-bros is indeed a stretch.
- gotorazor 3y ago
  This is kinda how history of ideas work. People just kind of think they think and know things independently from within themselves or something. Historians who study the origins of idea traces them back and make connections to thoughts and ideas of the past. Often, the inheritors of those ideas knows nothing of how they get them and think themselves clever for coming up with them all by themselves.
  - nearbuy 3y ago
    This is unfalsifiable speculation though. I could make that claim about anyone (eg, I could say actually it was H. G. Wells planted the seeds of techno-optimism in the present day AI community) and you would have no way to prove me wrong. Remove Margaret Mead from the timeline and the AI camps today would probably be the exact same. Those are basically the two options with anything in life that's both useful and dangerous: optimism or pessimism, hope or fear.
  - tgv 3y ago
    True, but that trace here is missing. There is no link apart from "Mead said something vaguely utopian", and that doesn't even seem specific for technology. In 1939, technology was not the most threatening thing.
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      You're joking, right ? By WW1 already, technology had changed war to the point that it became extremely economically destructive : https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/world-war-i-battlefields-uninhabitable/ https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/world-war-i-battlefie...
- _glass 3y ago

wolverine876 3y ago

> AI's societal debut in the 1980s The debut would seem to be at least 1968, with HAL9000's starring role in 2001: A Space Odyssey. (If you watch it now, you will see that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick made a film that is right on-target today. Even the most prominent feature of their 1968 fictional AI is its polite, conversational, very human output and input - and some very bad analysis.)