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“ The lens I look at this through is my grandfather, who developed film for a living. That job disappeared. Nobody cried out for the film developers when we mad
by techblueberry 11mo ago
“ The lens I look at this through is my grandfather, who developed film for a living. That job disappeared. Nobody cried out for the film developers when we made the shift to digital.”
This is how progress has created so much human suffering, by impacting people in a way just sparse enough that you can believably imply “no one cried out for x”.
Yes they did, it impacted thousands if not multiples of that; many in ways that they never recovered from. Some of them probably committed suicide, or ended up homeless, or in some other way had their life destroyed. And that impact reverberated onto their friends, families and communities. And maybe the New York Times even wrote an article about it, but we collectively as a society ignored that suffering.
- jorl17 11mo agoUtilitarianism is a bitch, huh? (I make this remark merely as a gag. I think you pinpoint an issue which has been unresolved for ages and is knee-deep into ethics. One could argue that many of our disagreements about AI and progress (in a broader sense) stem from different positions on ethics, including utilitarianism).
- techblueberry 11mo agoI’m a utilitarian, but a transparent one. I think most people are uncomfortable saying “I acknowledge the pain and suffering it took to make my iPhone, and the tradeoff is worth it.”
- jorl17 11mo agoI very unironically think everyone should watch The Good Place to get an initial feel for ethics.