Alberto, please keep writing. Your posts are thought-provoking and insightful. We need more human content and connections in an increasingly impersonal world. Thank you.
i give you free publicity at every speaking engagement with every student I teach. And this is why. What a great piece.
I will say I work with people with disabilities (like myself) who use tech to live much better lives than they would otherwise be able to enjoy. Robots for Humanity does great work in this field.
But otherwise you are correct - shame return on investment distorts everything from housing to scientific progress.
I'm writing a piece on disability and AI at the moment - going to have to quote today's piece!!
That's awesome John!! Thank you so much. Also, your work is a great example why denying the value of technology is absolute nonsense. People directly and indirectly benefit from it. We all do. We must argue to steer it and question the incentives and motivations, but not dismantle it or cheer for degrowth or whatever. AI is no different. The analysis requires more nuance than we're often allowed. I'm humbly trying to draw than ever-thinner line.
I can't recall if I mentioned it in a previous comment, but David Runciman's The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs (Norton, 2023) might be an appropriate complement to this, but not an optimistic one. One piece that I think needs to be added to what you wrote is the role of the state, especially the nexus of the military, intelligence, and police use of AI, that warps the uses of AI in even darker veins. I have written about it in passing and Erik J. Larson had an insightful piece on it yesterday. I keep thinking about Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler's short book, War Is a Racket. If that was true 90 years ago, it is even more true in this era of weaponized disinformation and AI. I am trying to think through ways of pushing things in an alternative direction, but am stymied when it comes to anything practical. You quote Lewis, so I'll nod toward Tolkien. As we think about this, we all need the courage and empathy of Frodo with the common sense and wonderment of Samwise.
Truly excellent. Thank you. I'm left pondering the power of direction--what is it that will cultivate humans to push in the right direction? Both individually and collectively? We get to choose the direction, right? How do we cultivate a life that will choose well.
WTF? We've had laundry and dishwashing robots since the 1960s at least. I have both in my house. So did my mother when I was growing up.
By any reasonable standard of humans prior to the year 1900, those of us in the first world already live in a utopia. Food, clothing, and shelter are easier to obtain than they ever were previously. We can cure most diseases. People routinely live into their 80s and 90s. Ordinary people fly in the air at 500 mph and travel on roads at 70 mph. We have electric light and refrigeration. All the knowledge of the world is available to everyone for free, at their fingertips. In little boxes we carry in our pockets.
My point is that you protest way too much. We in the first world have it good. It doesn't harm me (or you) if Jeff Bezos has his billion dollar pleasure yacht. Envy is never a good look - esp. from those already sitting pretty.
If you want to complain, complain for those in Africa, Venezuela, the third world. They still have it tough. But capitalism has been doing an excellent job of *reducing* international inequality (which is far more serious than any trivial differences between your living standards and Elon Musk's). Ref: https://ourworldindata.org/the-history-of-global-economic-inequality
Come on. If you've read the article you know I'm not complaining for me but for those who don't have what I do? I use myself *explicitly* as an example of privileged person. What did you read? Most of my refs about inequality are from our world in data. The story is not simple but of course you can make it that way if you refuse to look at the nuance. You don't like to hear the ugly parts? You can close your eyes and plug your ears.
I read until: "In the realization that capitalism isn’t about giving us what we want anymore but about making us want what we don’t need.” Disappointing. Capitalism does make us do anything. "We" want what we want and we don't want what we don't want. No need to blame wants on "capitalism".
That's not an argument. Can't capitalistic incentives push companies to exploit psychological vulnerabilities so that we "want" what we don't want? People scroll TikTok endlessly because they want to? Don't you think they'd rather do something else? As if our minds were monolithic. No - some companies press the right buttons to execute cravings we'd gladly shut down were we free of such external turbulence.
Let me already answer your answer to this: "Oh, but if such an external force can hijack your brain, then perhaps that's what you *truly* want." I don't care - because the question is whether capitalistic incentives are having harmful effects in some cases, and the answer is obviously yes. It's already hard enough to not fall victim to hyper-abundance when we evolved to live surrounded by scarcity. And yes, I'm grateful for the abundance nonetheless - I'm just not mindless enough to nod along everything that capitalistic incentives cause.
Alberto, please keep writing. Your posts are thought-provoking and insightful. We need more human content and connections in an increasingly impersonal world. Thank you.
Thanks David! Always appreciate kind comments like yours 🙏🏻
i give you free publicity at every speaking engagement with every student I teach. And this is why. What a great piece.
I will say I work with people with disabilities (like myself) who use tech to live much better lives than they would otherwise be able to enjoy. Robots for Humanity does great work in this field.
But otherwise you are correct - shame return on investment distorts everything from housing to scientific progress.
I'm writing a piece on disability and AI at the moment - going to have to quote today's piece!!
That's awesome John!! Thank you so much. Also, your work is a great example why denying the value of technology is absolute nonsense. People directly and indirectly benefit from it. We all do. We must argue to steer it and question the incentives and motivations, but not dismantle it or cheer for degrowth or whatever. AI is no different. The analysis requires more nuance than we're often allowed. I'm humbly trying to draw than ever-thinner line.
I can't recall if I mentioned it in a previous comment, but David Runciman's The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs (Norton, 2023) might be an appropriate complement to this, but not an optimistic one. One piece that I think needs to be added to what you wrote is the role of the state, especially the nexus of the military, intelligence, and police use of AI, that warps the uses of AI in even darker veins. I have written about it in passing and Erik J. Larson had an insightful piece on it yesterday. I keep thinking about Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler's short book, War Is a Racket. If that was true 90 years ago, it is even more true in this era of weaponized disinformation and AI. I am trying to think through ways of pushing things in an alternative direction, but am stymied when it comes to anything practical. You quote Lewis, so I'll nod toward Tolkien. As we think about this, we all need the courage and empathy of Frodo with the common sense and wonderment of Samwise.
Thanks for the rec Guy! I wrote about that recently too: https://www.thealgorithmicbridge.com/p/ai-firms-sold-their-souls-to-steal. Love that quote by Tolkien, especially because I just finished my yearly re-watching of LOTR haha.
Sorry, I had read that and forgotten that was you. The Seven Deadly Sins wonderful you do there is wonderfully creative.
Alberto, have you read Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu? I think you’d enjoy it.
Have it in my to-read list haha
Thanks, lovely~~~
Truly excellent. Thank you. I'm left pondering the power of direction--what is it that will cultivate humans to push in the right direction? Both individually and collectively? We get to choose the direction, right? How do we cultivate a life that will choose well.
WTF? We've had laundry and dishwashing robots since the 1960s at least. I have both in my house. So did my mother when I was growing up.
By any reasonable standard of humans prior to the year 1900, those of us in the first world already live in a utopia. Food, clothing, and shelter are easier to obtain than they ever were previously. We can cure most diseases. People routinely live into their 80s and 90s. Ordinary people fly in the air at 500 mph and travel on roads at 70 mph. We have electric light and refrigeration. All the knowledge of the world is available to everyone for free, at their fingertips. In little boxes we carry in our pockets.
Where's the argument/criticism/question? I already said that much myself.
My point is that you protest way too much. We in the first world have it good. It doesn't harm me (or you) if Jeff Bezos has his billion dollar pleasure yacht. Envy is never a good look - esp. from those already sitting pretty.
If you want to complain, complain for those in Africa, Venezuela, the third world. They still have it tough. But capitalism has been doing an excellent job of *reducing* international inequality (which is far more serious than any trivial differences between your living standards and Elon Musk's). Ref: https://ourworldindata.org/the-history-of-global-economic-inequality
Come on. If you've read the article you know I'm not complaining for me but for those who don't have what I do? I use myself *explicitly* as an example of privileged person. What did you read? Most of my refs about inequality are from our world in data. The story is not simple but of course you can make it that way if you refuse to look at the nuance. You don't like to hear the ugly parts? You can close your eyes and plug your ears.
I read until: "In the realization that capitalism isn’t about giving us what we want anymore but about making us want what we don’t need.” Disappointing. Capitalism does make us do anything. "We" want what we want and we don't want what we don't want. No need to blame wants on "capitalism".
That's not an argument. Can't capitalistic incentives push companies to exploit psychological vulnerabilities so that we "want" what we don't want? People scroll TikTok endlessly because they want to? Don't you think they'd rather do something else? As if our minds were monolithic. No - some companies press the right buttons to execute cravings we'd gladly shut down were we free of such external turbulence.
Let me already answer your answer to this: "Oh, but if such an external force can hijack your brain, then perhaps that's what you *truly* want." I don't care - because the question is whether capitalistic incentives are having harmful effects in some cases, and the answer is obviously yes. It's already hard enough to not fall victim to hyper-abundance when we evolved to live surrounded by scarcity. And yes, I'm grateful for the abundance nonetheless - I'm just not mindless enough to nod along everything that capitalistic incentives cause.