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This is the root of it. The control paired up with the current state of society. Technological advancements in modern times appear to only benefit very few num

This is the root of it. The control paired up with the current state of society. Technological advancements in modern times appear to only benefit very few numbers of individuals. The 1960s excitement was a time when we imagined it would benefit everyone more from it--not necessarily equally, but at least life not getting worse! Now we just see ourselves being replaced and struggling more, with the "lucky" ones in precarious employment. Whilst wealth inequality is already creeping towards record levels in the West, with potential wars are on the horizon, civil war being encouraged, and tech stocks appearing to be in a bubble alongside P/E ratios of corporate stocks at high levels like we saw before other financial disasters, it's hard for anyone to be excited about the near future. A lot of our best science and technology emerged from bad intentions--war, accidents, control, private power struggles. A lot of our worst science and technology emerged from good intentions--charity, humanity, heroism, public works. It's a strange world. We have to contend with edge cases, the butterfly effect, and dynamic chaotic systems etc. These are some reasons for the potential "road to hell paved paved with good intentions". The state of AI is unfortunately tragic to me. I've always loved, learned, used, designed, and then built technology. My life has largely revolved around it, and I'm witnessing another technological revolution. Yet the more I've learned about how humans use and control technology, the more I realized the truth: Technology =/= progress. We should all think extremely carefully about what we're contributing to. Progress is inevitable, but as designers, builders and preachers of the latest technologies, we have a small amount of power in society to help ensure resources cannot be secretly utilized against us. This small power is in our choice to use current offerings or encouraging others to, and whether we work for those who with to control us.

zerosizedweasle 11mo ago
I don't know if you've seen the movie Elysium. But the premise is that most of humanity lives impoverished filthy existence on Earth, while a tiny class of elite live on a space station in orbit. This is what people in the United States fear about AI. It's why the United States has the greatest rates of AI loathing of all countries in the world. They're afraid of that inequality.
bigbadfeline 11mo ago
An excellent comment much like everything zerosizedweasle wrote here. However, I can't believe you wrote these: > A lot of our best science and technology emerged from bad intentions--war, accidents, control, private power struggles. >A lot of our worst science and technology emerged from good intentions--charity, humanity, heroism, public works. And then concluded: > It's a strange world. I'd suggest to make a conclusion based on a deeper analysts starting with the question "Why?"... Nothing strange about it. For starters, aren't wars always sold with good intentions? As is AI now. > We should all think extremely carefully about what we're contributing to. What about to whom you're contributing to? > Progress is inevitable, but as designers, builders and preachers of the latest technologies, we have a small amount of power. How true, it's small indeed, for the sake of clarity I'll put it differently: Don't bring design skills to a political fight - that's definitely not the way to success, big or small.

zerosizedweasle 11mo ago

I don't know if you've seen the movie Elysium. But the premise is that most of humanity lives impoverished filthy existence on Earth, while a tiny class of elite live on a space station in orbit. This is what people in the United States fear about AI. It's why the United States has the greatest rates of AI loathing of all countries in the world. They're afraid of that inequality.

bigbadfeline 11mo ago

An excellent comment much like everything zerosizedweasle wrote here. However, I can't believe you wrote these: > A lot of our best science and technology emerged from bad intentions--war, accidents, control, private power struggles. >A lot of our worst science and technology emerged from good intentions--charity, humanity, heroism, public works. And then concluded: > It's a strange world. I'd suggest to make a conclusion based on a deeper analysts starting with the question "Why?"... Nothing strange about it. For starters, aren't wars always sold with good intentions? As is AI now. > We should all think extremely carefully about what we're contributing to. What about to whom you're contributing to? > Progress is inevitable, but as designers, builders and preachers of the latest technologies, we have a small amount of power. How true, it's small indeed, for the sake of clarity I'll put it differently: Don't bring design skills to a political fight - that's definitely not the way to success, big or small.