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Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

economist.com

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Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#11

Post by sealeck »

merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

> The technologists who create it believe they should control it

I think there's an interesting phenomenon where it is _not_ the people who control it, but instead a kind of international finance man cum-captain of industry (perhaps best embodied by Sam Altman) who does not create the technology and yet has ended up wielding the levers.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#12

Post by krapp »

ricardo81 wrote: post #10
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

I think you're around the mark. Big tech has continuously eroded the idea of privacy and copyright and explains a lot of their market caps. Mitigating seemingly has devolved to trade wars and protectionism. The genie is out the bottle with AI though. So perhaps decentralisation of it puts us all on a new level playing field.

What decentralization? AI is more extremely centralized than any other technology.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#13

Post by ricardo81 »

krapp wrote: post #12
ricardo81 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're around the mark. Big tech has continuously eroded the idea of privacy and copyright and explains a lot of their market caps. Mitigating seemingly has devolved to trade wars and protectionism. The genie is out the bottle with AI though. So perhaps decentralisation of it puts us all on a new level playing field.

What decentralization? AI is more extremely centralized than any other technology.

The point being that's the solution. I didn't say it is decentralised.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#14

Post by Borg3 »

merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

Normally, its the one who understand technology, can control it. Unfortunately, its not the case anymore. Stuff got unnecessary complex and bloated, hard to grasp it alone. Also, now AI plays the new role too.

Dark times ahead...

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#17

Post by amelius »

Borg3 wrote: post #14
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

Normally, its the one who understand technology, can control it. Unfortunately, its not the case anymore. Stuff got unnecessary complex and bloated, hard to grasp it alone. Also, now AI plays the new role too. Dark times ahead...

The technologists can control it, the moment they can remove that stupid disclaimer saying that AI can make mistakes.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#18

Post by krapp »

mijailt wrote: post #8

Somewhat related: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist [1] > Thiel: [...] There’s a risk of nuclear war, there’s a risk of environmental disaster. Maybe something specific, like climate change, although there are lots of other ones we’ve come up with. There’s a risk of bioweapons. You have all the different sci-fi scenarios. Obviously, there are certain types of risks with A.I. > But I always think that if we’re going to h…

Peter Thiel is just putting an ill-defined pseudo-Christian facade around his AI accelerationist beliefs because he knows that in the current American right-wing climate evangelical Christianity is what drives political power particularly in tech. His "antichrist" is merely anyone or anything standing between him and as much money and power as possible.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#19

Post by krapp »

ricardo81 wrote: post #13
krapp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What decentralization? AI is more extremely centralized than any other technology.

The point being that's the solution. I didn't say it is decentralised.

How is it possible to decentralize a technology that needs data centers the size of Manhattan? It doesn't seem like a reasonable solution.

A better solution would be to just not have AI at all, outside of the few research roles where LLMs actually make sense.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#20

Post by merelydev »

lacunary wrote: post #9
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

yes it's called "actually having democratic elections"

What does "democratic elections" even mean in this new world where traditional politicians don't understand these dynamics?
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