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

211–220 of 295 posts

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

#211

Post by lordnacho »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #186
lordnacho wrote: post #118

I disagree. Technology is the very solution to our problems, the driver of social change. Why? Because our social instincts don't change terribly fast, being coded in DNA. Our hardware/OS is more or less what it was when the last ice age ended. Nobody has extra arms or hearts. People still use "look each other in the eye" and other old school tropes to decide if they are comfortable with a new person. The only thing…

"the only way to solve our social problems to think of "better" ways to use the planet?" I am skeptical. What if instead of designing new tools and new ways of exploiting natural resources, we also shifted our cultural mores and practices to encourage more efficiency and less waste? New shiny tools are great, but there's something to be said for maintaining what's already laid down and properly utilizing what's alrea…

> encourage more efficiency and less waste

That's exactly what we can do with technology. How are we going to clean up all the plastic? How do we build a house that doesn't leak heat? How do we avoid putting all that carbon in the air?

The answer is always going to be this: someone thinks of a new way to arrange things in order to achieve these goals, in a way where we get more goodness (utility, health, happiness, etc) out of the same blue sphere.

> There is a book on this dichotomy of environmentalists vs technologists, and how one group advocates efficiency/conservation and the other advocates innovation/change. I think both schools of thought are needed to move forward to the best outcome, wouldn't you agree?

Yes, they are two sides of the same coin. When the tech exists, society (ie environmentalists in this case) can plausibly push for new behaviours.

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

#212

Post by zeroname »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #40

Technology absolutely solves humanity's problems. There's pretty much no problem that given a large thoughtful effort, technology has not solved. The problem is that humanity is bad at choosing where to invest in technology. Our society has been set up so that orders of magnitude of more money is spent on advertising technology than clean energy, sanitation, sustainability, and ethical food production. Technology is…

> Technology absolutely solves humanity's problems. There's pretty much no problem that given a large thoughtful effort, technology has not solved. The problem is that humanity is bad at choosing where to invest in technology.

In other words:

Technology would solve humanity's problems, except it doesn't, because humanity is bad at choosing the right technologies.

Or, more succinctly:

TECHNOLOGY does not solve humanity's problems.

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

#213

Post by darawk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #207
darawk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, yeah? I know there have been cases where drone strikes were justified, but it really only takes one instance of "We think there's some terrorists at this wedding, so let's fire a fragmentation missile into the middle of it, and then another one a few minutes later to make sure we kill the paramedics and firemen too" to decide that the US military is not responsible enough to be allowed to make these decisio…

It's designed to kill anyone who comes to the aid of the injured. In any built-up area, that will obviously include ambulance personnel; there's no way the policy-makers do not know this. So, yes, it is absolutely designed to kill civilian medics and concerned neighbors/bystanders, and has done so over and over. See also: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/outrage-at... https://www.thebureauinvestigate…

> In any built-up area

Was it being done in built-up areas? I see the word 'rescuer' being used in these articles. But I notably do not see the word 'civilian'. A terrorist who tries to save the lives of his terrorist buddies is still a 'rescuer', and that's exactly who these drone strikes ought to be targeting.

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

#214

Post by albertgoeswoof »

voidhorse wrote: post #50
dumbfoundded wrote: post #40

Technology absolutely solves humanity's problems. There's pretty much no problem that given a large thoughtful effort, technology has not solved. The problem is that humanity is bad at choosing where to invest in technology. Our society has been set up so that orders of magnitude of more money is spent on advertising technology than clean energy, sanitation, sustainability, and ethical food production. Technology is…

You're certainly correct that the major problem is social, economic, and structural, but I do think there are some technologies that are inherently tricky to justify regardless of the economic structures they arise in. The atomic bomb is one obvious example of a technology that seems to be inherently bad not only for humanity, but for biological life itself. You could argue that the problem of the bomb is more-so a p…

The atomic bomb is a bad example- the reason we haven’t had ww3 is due to nuclear weapons. MAD basically means that no rational actor will fire a nuke at someone else who also has one, so we’re all paralysed and need to fight wars in other ways (the Cold War, proxy wars eg Syria, trade wars, cyber warfare, propaganda etc), all of which are less impactful than the world wars we would have without MAD

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

#215

Post by PhasmaFelis »

darawk wrote: post #159
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. Adults are expected to understand the potential consequences of their actions. If you knowingly fire missiles into a populated area, you don't get to say "oops, I didn't mean to" when you accidentally kill a few dozen innocent civilians.

> It doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. Intending to kill civilians and killing them accidentally are very, very different things. > Adults are expected to understand the potential consequences of their actions. If you knowingly fire missiles into a populated area, you don't get to say "oops, I didn't mean to" when you accidentally kill a few dozen innocent civilians. Are you alleging that they didn't understand…

If you blow up a terrorist training camp out in the desert, and it turns out afterwards that there were a few civilian hostages or dependents on-site, that's unfortunate but arguably unavoidable.

If you bomb an outdoor wedding party with dozens of visible women and children, and then return to fire again when ambulances are on the scene, that's not an "unfortunate accident". That's deadly negligence at the very best. You're trying to twist the second example into the framework of the first.

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

#216

Post by zeroname »

pnathan wrote: post #209

This is a dramatic shift from the mid-90s viewpoint, which held an incredibly youthful optimism that has long fed into Google's culture. I want to bring that to one's attention. That said, this also reads like a thoughtful and mature viewpoint; nuanced and understanding the reality of humans colliding with sophisticated technology. Historians and philosophers have a lot to contribute to this world; I think there's an…

If you're at the top of Google, one of the most well-financed entities in the world and you actually understand all of its "high end" technologies to a reasonable degree, I think that's going to bring you back down to earth. Plus, coming from another culture brings in some perspective.

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

#217

Post by ucaetano »

kazen44 wrote: post #163
ucaetano wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because there are more courses of action other than "drone strike" and "carpet bombing". Indeed, but those courses aren't always available, and war will happen in the way war happens. If not, your argument isn't about drones, it is about pacifism. That's like saying "I'll magically lift everyone out of the way" in the trolley problem. Sure, it is a nice thought, but it is not an answer to the question. I'll ask aga…

smart bombs is the obvious answer, but your question is has a false pretense. Carpet bombing and a drone strike are not in the same "solution space", its like trying to tighten your shoelaces with your hands or with a 10 ton excevator.

> Carpet bombing and a drone strike are not in the same "solution space", its like trying to tighten your shoelaces with your hands or with a 10 ton excevator.

Oh, but they are (particularly because I'm not just including drone strikes, but smart bombs).

Wanna destroy a factory, a power-plant, a bunker, a government office?

In WW2, you'd just carpet-bomb the surrounding area and hope some bombs hit the target.

Today, you deliver a payload to a specific part of it.

Compare the bombing of Belgrade in the Balkan wars to any WW2 bombing run.

There are two discussions in place:

- How we make weapons more precise and limit collateral damage - How we reduce the need for weapons in the first place

Both lead to a better situation than the status quo.

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

#218

Post by PhasmaFelis »

darawk wrote: post #213
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's designed to kill anyone who comes to the aid of the injured. In any built-up area, that will obviously include ambulance personnel; there's no way the policy-makers do not know this. So, yes, it is absolutely designed to kill civilian medics and concerned neighbors/bystanders, and has done so over and over. See also: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/outrage-at... https://www.thebureauinvestigate…

> In any built-up area Was it being done in built-up areas? I see the word 'rescuer' being used in these articles. But I notably do not see the word 'civilian'. A terrorist who tries to save the lives of his terrorist buddies is still a 'rescuer', and that's exactly who these drone strikes ought to be targeting.

The term "village" is used repeatedly. If you think that--when there's an explosion in a village--it's reasonable to assume that the only people who rush to assist are terrorists, then you need to provide proof of that, not ask me to prove the opposite. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

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

#219

Post by zeroname »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #186
lordnacho wrote: post #118

I disagree. Technology is the very solution to our problems, the driver of social change. Why? Because our social instincts don't change terribly fast, being coded in DNA. Our hardware/OS is more or less what it was when the last ice age ended. Nobody has extra arms or hearts. People still use "look each other in the eye" and other old school tropes to decide if they are comfortable with a new person. The only thing…

"the only way to solve our social problems to think of "better" ways to use the planet?" I am skeptical. What if instead of designing new tools and new ways of exploiting natural resources, we also shifted our cultural mores and practices to encourage more efficiency and less waste? New shiny tools are great, but there's something to be said for maintaining what's already laid down and properly utilizing what's alrea…

> There is a book on this dichotomy of environmentalists vs technologists, and how one group advocates efficiency/conservation and the other advocates innovation/change. I think both schools of thought are needed to move forward to the best outcome, wouldn't you agree?

Both technologists and environmentalists are subordinate to economics and human psychology. People don't care about the environment until they're wealthy enough to do so and they're deeply suspicious about new technology.

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

#220

Post by craftyguy »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #188
craftyguy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> blow one up so it doesn't collide with something eventually. The one thing worse than a large asteroid heading for you is dozens of medium-sized ones and thousands of small ones all heading for you.

That's simply not true.

[citation needed]
Post reply on HN