The problem is not of technology. The problem is that we are working to apply technology solutions with no regard to the scale and trade-offs involved.
- Automation is good. Striving for "100% robotic warehouses" is a recipe to further concentrate wealth around the handful of corporations that can deploy it.
- Electric engines are good. Thinking that we would be better off by giving one car to every adult person instead of simply redesigning the overall transit network is a horrible idea.
- Finding new sources for rare earths is good. Jumping to the conclusion that this means we can then extract them is absurdly naive. We don't even recycle plastic properly, what do you think is going to happen with all those metals in the failing car batteries 20 years from now?
- Improved drones are good. Arguing that progress is "getting VIPs out of congested areas" is absolutely dystopian.
- Having drugs to treat diabetes is good. But having these drugs under the control of pharma corporations who worry more about their bottom line than actual health of the population is outright cruel.
I am all for developing technology. I am not a Luddite. But we got to ask ourselves "cui buono?". Whenever we see somebody pushing some technology or project to solve "humanity problems", the immediate check should be "if this problem is so important to solve, would you still work on it even if you gained nothing from it?"
Having drugs to treat it is good. But a food system and built environment that causes a big chunk of the population to develop T2D in middle-age, and sees the solution as "take a pill to make it go away" is a profoundly unhealthy one.
Insulin-insensitivity is supposed to be a rare-ish disease of old age, not a common disease of middle age.
Yes, it's an unhealthy one, but here's the thing: The drugs affecting this changes purchasing patterns too. It doesn't just make the symptoms go away. As a result it may very well end up having lasting changes to food consumption patterns. It'd be nice if we didn't need it in the first place, but as drugs go, these drugs seem to fix the right thing.
> problem is that we are working to apply technology solutions with no regard to the scale and trade-offs involved
This has been claimed for everything from writing to the printing press and steam engine. If you want perfectly deliberated technological development, you’re against new technology.
> if this problem is so important to solve, would you still work on it even if you gained nothing from it?
> If you want perfectly deliberated technological development, you’re against new technology.
This is absurd and the exact opposite of what I am saying.
It's fine to work on new developments. It's not fine when people take their new developments and try to force them down everyone's throats.
To illustrate, look at Sam Altman going to congress and having the petulance to argue that they can not make a business if OpenAI had to pay for copyrighted material.
He is not arguing "we should work together with the copyright holders and give them ownership in the venture".
He is not saying "developing this is crucial and can benefit everyone, so we hope we can make up for the copyright infringement by putting all our work in the public domain."
He is just saying "I need this because without it I can not make money, and to make this I need money". It's self-serving circular logic.
> You’re describing research, not technology.
Which is exactly how VCs dress up their investments and justify how unethical their companies are.
> He is just saying "I need this because without it I can not make money, and to make this I need money". It's self-serving circular logic
Sure. That is bad. That doesn’t make GPTs bad nor the good they do irrelevant.
> Which is exactly how VCs dress up their investments and justify how unethical their companies are
Sure, arguments can be used well or badly. The point remains that technology has to have utility to be technology. Otherwise it’s research or art (or fraud), the first two of which we pursue for their own purpose.
> The point remains that technology has to have utility to be technology
I haven't argued otherwise. My argument is that utility alone is not enough a justification to keep working on specific technologies, much less to promote them as an universal solution to existing problems.
This can be said about practically any technology outside agriculture. It’s wild to pretend the items on that list don’t increase quality of life.