Great article, thank you. (as an aside, I happen to be currently half-way through reading David Noble's "The Religion of Technology"). I see the main problem with most debates on technology as three-fold.
(1).The whole debate is conducted with an anthropocentric (as opposed to symbiocentric) mind-set.
(2).Materialism is taken as given.
(3).The word 'growth' has been subject to verboklepsy (when words are 'stolen' and given a new meaning and then fed back to people who don't even notice the change). 'Growth' is used in the literal sense whilst sounding to the listener as in the figurative sense; eg: the term 'economic growth' (automatically linked to the idea of 'progress') is actually parasitic growth, which happens at the end of the the life of a human/animal - whilst at the same time it sounds as if it is 'natural growth' and by implication is obviously 'a good thing'. Who would question 'growth' or 'progress'? Well, if what was truly meant by these words when spouted by politicians and techno-optimists, then lots of people would question them. Who wants parasitic growth? Who would then naïvely confuse technical progress with technological progress?
Finally, we have had enough sufficiently advanced technologies for well over half a century to feed the world, provide adequate housing, generate interesting and creative opportunities for people to explore life, and to all live in peace together. The idea that the latest tech, AI, will somehow 'solve this problem' is utterly absurd.
Great article, thank you. (as an aside, I happen to be currently half-way through reading David Noble's "The Religion of Technology"). I see the main problem with most debates on technology as three-fold.
(1).The whole debate is conducted with an anthropocentric (as opposed to symbiocentric) mind-set.
(2).Materialism is taken as given.
(3).The word 'growth' has been subject to verboklepsy (when words are 'stolen' and given a new meaning and then fed back to people who don't even notice the change). 'Growth' is used in the literal sense whilst sounding to the listener as in the figurative sense; eg: the term 'economic growth' (automatically linked to the idea of 'progress') is actually parasitic growth, which happens at the end of the the life of a human/animal - whilst at the same time it sounds as if it is 'natural growth' and by implication is obviously 'a good thing'. Who would question 'growth' or 'progress'? Well, if what was truly meant by these words when spouted by politicians and techno-optimists, then lots of people would question them. Who wants parasitic growth? Who would then naïvely confuse technical progress with technological progress?
Finally, we have had enough sufficiently advanced technologies for well over half a century to feed the world, provide adequate housing, generate interesting and creative opportunities for people to explore life, and to all live in peace together. The idea that the latest tech, AI, will somehow 'solve this problem' is utterly absurd.