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Great article, I also have no doubt we're in for some serious changes in society. But I disagree with the conclusion. I think the ideal place to be is neither o

Great article, I also have no doubt we're in for some serious changes in society. But I disagree with the conclusion. I think the ideal place to be is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but neutral. A conviction that the future is bright isn't enough to actually make the future bright. I was optimistic when Facebook first came out, and it turned into a dystopian nightmare. I was optimistic when self checkouts appeared, and now I feel like I'm a criminal by default every time I get groceries. I was optimistic about more people being online, and now we all feel like we can't get off it. I've become increasingly cynical about tech because of these and a thousand other disappointments about the utopia that was promised turning into not much more than an efficient means of extracting money from all of us. I don't think it's ever a good idea to be totally optimistic or pessimistic about a new technology, because then we're liable to ignore anything that goes against our narrative. Really, we don't know, and we can't know what's best for ourselves, usually until it's too late.

_petronius 1y ago
I have been thinking a lot about this parable (introduced to me by Bluey) in relation to the current surge of GenAI https://btribble.com/well-see/ https://btribble.com/well-see/ > A conviction that the future is bright isn't enough to actually make the future bright. Well said. We have to be curious, open, and ready to use the benefits of technological change, but also skeptical, concerned, and willing to defend social and political norms, too. Wild optimism is potentially very dangerous; hardline pessimism would leave us insufficiently ready to face the moment when we do need to act proactively.
- jordwest 1y ago
  I love that parable. It stands in such contrast to a world where we all feel a pressure to know what’s right and wrong, how things will go etc. The reality is none of us do.
  - Karrot_Kream 1y ago
    I'm curious where you think this pressure comes from. I don't necessarily feel it myself but a lot of message board content I consume seems to react to this pressure, a pressure to have conviction in right and wrong. Is there something in the zeitgeist you feel that pushes people to have a strong stance?
    - jordwest 1y ago
      I can only speak for myself, but what I discovered internally were a few mechanisms of my mind: 1. A fear of the unknown. The mind tries to construct a knowable future in order to feel safe and prepared. It doesn’t matter how accurate it is, it just chooses what’s comfortable. 2. A desire to fit in, be accepted or loved. If our beliefs are reflected by others, it means we are accepted. If the beliefs are attacked, it’s not just a challenge to a belief system but it’s an attack on me and my validity as a person. I think both of these seem to combine and play out online as we find groups of people who have acceptable beliefs to us. For some people, total pessimism is actually the comfortable perspective (that was me for sure) and for others maybe a blind optimism makes them feel safe. When both of these fell away I realised how distorting they had been to my world view and my ability to actually engage with changes.
- thunky 1y ago
  Tailing off the pessimism part: A lack of conviction that the future is bright is enough to make the future dark.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Well, it's at least enough to make the future dark for us. If you believe that there isn't any future worth having, and act on that belief, then your future is likely to be fairly crummy. And, if enough people in a society believe and act that way, the future is likely to be crummier for the society as a whole, too.
aikinai 1y ago
How does self-checkout make you feel like a criminal? I didn’t follow that one.
- sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
  Not OP, but the way self-checkouts are built does make one feel like they are being treated as a potential thief. There are cameras in each till recording you as you are scanning your items. The moment you scan your item, the thing keeps nagging you to put it in the basket because it wants to weigh it to make sure you are not placing anything extra. If for whatever reason you don't want to put it in the basket, it doesn't allow you to scan anything else. The list goes on. Yes I know all about "shrinkage" but self-checkouts just feel like some smart arse built a machine which barely replaces the person at the till and sold it to supermarkets as a feature.
  - aikinai 1y ago
    Oh, I see. I live in Japan where self-checkouts are extremely common and have no particular security, so I’m not familiar with those systems.
    - jordwest 1y ago
      Ahh perhaps it’s because Japan is such a high trust society. One of the few places where you can typically expect your lost wallet returned with all the cash inside. Here in Australia, several Coles supermarkets have installed exit gates that track you on camera as you walk through the self checkout area, and if the machine decides you didn’t pay, it will physically close the gate and flash red. Woolworths also have cameras in front and above each self checkout, and when the machine inevitably decides that the weight of your reusable grocery bag is an attempt to steal something, it will replay the footage from above to the assistant. I have actually noticed I’m hassled far less by the Aldi self checkouts, they seem to need a lot less operator intervention so I tend to shop there more nowadays.
  - JohnFen 1y ago
    This is the main reason why I stopped using self-checkouts entirely. I'd rather wait in line than feel like I'm a suspect. Also, there is too much risk of a false theft accusation. Better to let a store employee do the work and not expose myself to that risk.
sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
Well said - all of this resonates with me. We have to try to ensure that these new tools do not create more dystopian nightmares as well based on our experience of the past couple of decades.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  I believe that'll be impossible. These new tools inherently shift power away from labor and towards capital, in a world that is already heavily skewed that way. The inevitable result will be even worse lives for most people, while the very rich will be able to live in even greater excess.
  - sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
    Maybe not impossible, but very hard indeed. Imagine this was the start of the search engine era. Everyone jumped on Google as it was hip and they promised not to be evil. We all know how that panned out. What we need is open source implementations which governments can take and provide for their citizens. Yes I know many will laugh at this idea, but in principle it is the right thing to do. If these services become a part of everyday life, it is the responsibility of government to make it available to their citizens in a way that is not harmful.
    - saubeidl 1y ago
      Funnily enough, the closest to that is China with Deepseek. Both of which are demonized by the VC class. Funny, that.
the_mitsuhiko 1y ago
> I don't think it's ever a good idea to be totally optimistic or pessimistic about a new technology, because then we're liable to ignore anything that goes against our narrative. A healthy dose of skepticism is always necessary, that goes for anything in life. That is obviously also true for AI. The backdrop of this post is what I believe to be an disproportionate amount of skepticism right now in my circles that is largely based on things you can already refute. There for sure will be knock-on effects from this we cannot anticipate yet, and when we see inklings of that we will need to deal with that. Facebook and social media is a good example of this, because we did miss the effects it had or we dismissed them. However if you go back to what the original skepticism of Facebook was (mostly privacy), it mostly missed the actual dramatic effects social media had on the psyche of children years later.
oulipo 1y ago
Looool, your post is "let's be neutral", and then going on about making a list of how EVERYTHING has gone not neutral, but ACTIVELY BAD. That's exactly why we need to have a pessimist view on these kind of tech, because we've monitored them for a while now, and they've shown that THEY MOSTLY BRING BAD CHANGES (except to a select few white rich westerners, who is the main population here, so I'm expecting the downvotes, and who lack real empathy, like the OP, to understand what "keeping their privileges" is doing to other vulnerable populations)
- jordwest 1y ago
  I could go on with a list of ways I think technology has been good too - the internet allowing people to connect across the world almost for free, less estrangement from other cultures, new artistic mediums and ways to share art with other people, enabling indie writers, artists, and engineers to sell their work to the whole world and make a living from it. Those are things I think most people would be happy to see more of. I agree though that (particularly in the last decade) tech advancements have been more heavily weighed towards exploitative than helpful.
  - oulipo 1y ago
    Well, so again we agree, that's exactly why we need pessimists indeed: as of late, most developments have been for the worse, not the better

_petronius 1y ago

I have been thinking a lot about this parable (introduced to me by Bluey) in relation to the current surge of GenAI https://btribble.com/well-see/ https://btribble.com/well-see/ > A conviction that the future is bright isn't enough to actually make the future bright. Well said. We have to be curious, open, and ready to use the benefits of technological change, but also skeptical, concerned, and willing to defend social and political norms, too. Wild optimism is potentially very dangerous; hardline pessimism would leave us insufficiently ready to face the moment when we do need to act proactively.

jordwest 1y ago
I love that parable. It stands in such contrast to a world where we all feel a pressure to know what’s right and wrong, how things will go etc. The reality is none of us do.
- Karrot_Kream 1y ago
  I'm curious where you think this pressure comes from. I don't necessarily feel it myself but a lot of message board content I consume seems to react to this pressure, a pressure to have conviction in right and wrong. Is there something in the zeitgeist you feel that pushes people to have a strong stance?
  - jordwest 1y ago
    I can only speak for myself, but what I discovered internally were a few mechanisms of my mind: 1. A fear of the unknown. The mind tries to construct a knowable future in order to feel safe and prepared. It doesn’t matter how accurate it is, it just chooses what’s comfortable. 2. A desire to fit in, be accepted or loved. If our beliefs are reflected by others, it means we are accepted. If the beliefs are attacked, it’s not just a challenge to a belief system but it’s an attack on me and my validity as a person. I think both of these seem to combine and play out online as we find groups of people who have acceptable beliefs to us. For some people, total pessimism is actually the comfortable perspective (that was me for sure) and for others maybe a blind optimism makes them feel safe. When both of these fell away I realised how distorting they had been to my world view and my ability to actually engage with changes.
thunky 1y ago
Tailing off the pessimism part: A lack of conviction that the future is bright is enough to make the future dark.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Well, it's at least enough to make the future dark for us. If you believe that there isn't any future worth having, and act on that belief, then your future is likely to be fairly crummy. And, if enough people in a society believe and act that way, the future is likely to be crummier for the society as a whole, too.

aikinai 1y ago

How does self-checkout make you feel like a criminal? I didn’t follow that one.

sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
Not OP, but the way self-checkouts are built does make one feel like they are being treated as a potential thief. There are cameras in each till recording you as you are scanning your items. The moment you scan your item, the thing keeps nagging you to put it in the basket because it wants to weigh it to make sure you are not placing anything extra. If for whatever reason you don't want to put it in the basket, it doesn't allow you to scan anything else. The list goes on. Yes I know all about "shrinkage" but self-checkouts just feel like some smart arse built a machine which barely replaces the person at the till and sold it to supermarkets as a feature.
- aikinai 1y ago
  Oh, I see. I live in Japan where self-checkouts are extremely common and have no particular security, so I’m not familiar with those systems.
  - jordwest 1y ago
    Ahh perhaps it’s because Japan is such a high trust society. One of the few places where you can typically expect your lost wallet returned with all the cash inside. Here in Australia, several Coles supermarkets have installed exit gates that track you on camera as you walk through the self checkout area, and if the machine decides you didn’t pay, it will physically close the gate and flash red. Woolworths also have cameras in front and above each self checkout, and when the machine inevitably decides that the weight of your reusable grocery bag is an attempt to steal something, it will replay the footage from above to the assistant. I have actually noticed I’m hassled far less by the Aldi self checkouts, they seem to need a lot less operator intervention so I tend to shop there more nowadays.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  This is the main reason why I stopped using self-checkouts entirely. I'd rather wait in line than feel like I'm a suspect. Also, there is too much risk of a false theft accusation. Better to let a store employee do the work and not expose myself to that risk.

sam-cop-vimes 1y ago

Well said - all of this resonates with me. We have to try to ensure that these new tools do not create more dystopian nightmares as well based on our experience of the past couple of decades.

saubeidl 1y ago
I believe that'll be impossible. These new tools inherently shift power away from labor and towards capital, in a world that is already heavily skewed that way. The inevitable result will be even worse lives for most people, while the very rich will be able to live in even greater excess.
- sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
  Maybe not impossible, but very hard indeed. Imagine this was the start of the search engine era. Everyone jumped on Google as it was hip and they promised not to be evil. We all know how that panned out. What we need is open source implementations which governments can take and provide for their citizens. Yes I know many will laugh at this idea, but in principle it is the right thing to do. If these services become a part of everyday life, it is the responsibility of government to make it available to their citizens in a way that is not harmful.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    Funnily enough, the closest to that is China with Deepseek. Both of which are demonized by the VC class. Funny, that.

the_mitsuhiko 1y ago

> I don't think it's ever a good idea to be totally optimistic or pessimistic about a new technology, because then we're liable to ignore anything that goes against our narrative. A healthy dose of skepticism is always necessary, that goes for anything in life. That is obviously also true for AI. The backdrop of this post is what I believe to be an disproportionate amount of skepticism right now in my circles that is largely based on things you can already refute. There for sure will be knock-on effects from this we cannot anticipate yet, and when we see inklings of that we will need to deal with that. Facebook and social media is a good example of this, because we did miss the effects it had or we dismissed them. However if you go back to what the original skepticism of Facebook was (mostly privacy), it mostly missed the actual dramatic effects social media had on the psyche of children years later.

oulipo 1y ago

Looool, your post is "let's be neutral", and then going on about making a list of how EVERYTHING has gone not neutral, but ACTIVELY BAD. That's exactly why we need to have a pessimist view on these kind of tech, because we've monitored them for a while now, and they've shown that THEY MOSTLY BRING BAD CHANGES (except to a select few white rich westerners, who is the main population here, so I'm expecting the downvotes, and who lack real empathy, like the OP, to understand what "keeping their privileges" is doing to other vulnerable populations)

jordwest 1y ago
I could go on with a list of ways I think technology has been good too - the internet allowing people to connect across the world almost for free, less estrangement from other cultures, new artistic mediums and ways to share art with other people, enabling indie writers, artists, and engineers to sell their work to the whole world and make a living from it. Those are things I think most people would be happy to see more of. I agree though that (particularly in the last decade) tech advancements have been more heavily weighed towards exploitative than helpful.
- oulipo 1y ago
  Well, so again we agree, that's exactly why we need pessimists indeed: as of late, most developments have been for the worse, not the better