Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 295 posts

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#21

Post by sudhirj »

Glennross wrote: post #13

(Please try to respect the netiquette when voting.) Empty words by Sundar Pichai employed to achieve a desired effect in Google's benefit. The airplane is an example of a technology that has brought us closer together and helped advance the ideal of an interconnected global "village" and which I'm contrasting with the promise made for Google's products -- but don't get hung up on my example, because my argument is di…

The airplane is what enabled delivery of both nuclear bombs, as well as atrocities against the population in Vietnam and Syria.

All technology has no inherent moral compass, and allows for both desirable and undesirable effects, often in tandem.

Google has done more to make information accessible than any other company, and by extension has also done more to make misinformation accessible.

It takes a moral compass to use technology morally and ethically. There simply isn't a substitute, and technology itself will not provide one.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#22

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #7

To put the title into context: "Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?" "There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve h…

Part of me can't help but read this a little cynically.

They're starting to articulate a shift away from Larry Page's idealistic view of making information universally accessible and useful and toward tempering expectations about what technology can do.

After that they'll pivot increasingly toward a position that lets them justify the drone and censorship programs without the baggage of Page's original naivety.

Again, that's an overly cynical take. But it's kind of hard to avoid reading that as a possibility.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#23

Post by [deleted] »

marricks wrote: post #18
discoball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he's right about humanity having to solve its problems but he's forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.

His statement is a wonderful PR side step of that issue. It’s meant to convey an understanding of the moral challenges of technology but with their support of the DoD it seems, well, words are wind.

[deleted]

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#24

Post by gallerdude »

I think technology is all about giving us more degrees of freedom. For a familiar example, video games can provide vastly more experiences as processing power marches on. But this is far from limited to computer-adjacent things.

Facebook gives a lot more degrees of freedom in relationships with other people, YouTube and blogs and reddit give content creators the most meritocratic markets to have ever existed, the camera on your phone is better and more portable than 99% of old cameras.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#25

Post by DiffEq »

Glennross wrote: post #13

(Please try to respect the netiquette when voting.) Empty words by Sundar Pichai employed to achieve a desired effect in Google's benefit. The airplane is an example of a technology that has brought us closer together and helped advance the ideal of an interconnected global "village" and which I'm contrasting with the promise made for Google's products -- but don't get hung up on my example, because my argument is di…

You could say that about a lot of things, telephones, radio, cars, trains, etc. These, with the plane, have been used for great things for sure. But these tools have also been used for terrible destruction. So much so that Churchill lamented the existence of the airplane.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#26

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

Glennross wrote: post #13

(Please try to respect the netiquette when voting.) Empty words by Sundar Pichai employed to achieve a desired effect in Google's benefit. The airplane is an example of a technology that has brought us closer together and helped advance the ideal of an interconnected global "village" and which I'm contrasting with the promise made for Google's products -- but don't get hung up on my example, because my argument is di…

These might be empty words in Sundar Pichai's mouth, but the underlying idea is not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy)

It's time for Silicon Valley (I actually mean supporter's of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism actually) to learn what Classical Greeks discovered a long time ago.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#27

Post by beambot »

discoball wrote: post #12
Kurtz79 wrote: post #7

To put the title into context: "Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?" "There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve h…

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he's right about humanity having to solve its problems but he's forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.

Both of the listed examples involve governments. To first order, governments are created by groups of people to address issues that are larger than any one individual. (I.e. closer to "humanity" as a collective than you as an individual.)

> enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.

This statement is all subject to your interpretation of "humanity's best interests". Not saying I disagree with your interpretation... Just saying: there are many interpretations, especially in other cultural bubbles.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#28

Post by ryanmercer »

It creates a lot of them

- microplastics

- co2/global warming

- an increase in cancer from use of various radiation/chemical pollutants

- rapid transmission of disease via air travel and automobile travel

- all sorts of negative consequences from the rise and widespread adoption of social media (addiction, depression, bullying, terrorist recruitment, easier avenues for committing fraud, etc)

Technology is a tool like any other, can be a benefit and a curse. A gun can provide recreation, can put food on the table but at the same time can be used to murder. Dynamite allowed much more efficient (and safer) mining but it also showed that there was the possibility of far more stable explosives than black powder and nitroglycerin which almost certainly directly resulted in many other explosives, like TNT, being developed and used to wage war.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#29

Post by yourbandsucks »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #22
Kurtz79 wrote: post #7

To put the title into context: "Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?" "There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve h…

Part of me can't help but read this a little cynically. They're starting to articulate a shift away from Larry Page's idealistic view of making information universally accessible and useful and toward tempering expectations about what technology can do. After that they'll pivot increasingly toward a position that lets them justify the drone and censorship programs without the baggage of Page's original naivety. Again…

I see it differently. Achieving broad, idealistic goals requires careful and strategic thinking and that's what he's expressing here.

I'd argue you're being overly naive rather than overly cynical -- real-world trade offs have downsides, and require deliberation. They're not solvable with sloganeering or absolute purity.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#30

Post by Emma_Goldman »

gallerdude wrote: post #24

I think technology is all about giving us more degrees of freedom. For a familiar example, video games can provide vastly more experiences as processing power marches on. But this is far from limited to computer-adjacent things. Facebook gives a lot more degrees of freedom in relationships with other people, YouTube and blogs and reddit give content creators the most meritocratic markets to have ever existed, the cam…

You are confusing 'freedom' and 'power'.

On the most popular analysis, to be free is to be deprived of a personal power which one has, e.g. for some force to interfere and stop you from exercising your capacity for speech.

We cannot have been unfree to use facebook before the invention of facebook because we never had that power, and because it is not a personal power, but an instrumental power outside of our person.

Post reply on HN