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

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by golemotron »

jonnykim98 wrote: post #48

Is code truly amoral? Technology is not morally neutral. It embodies a set of values, a framework and an ideology. For instance, Google search engines have intrinsic properties that make them inherently and irredeemably flawed, because they attempt to infer intellectual properties, such as the meaningful content of a web site, from physical properties. Search engines rely primarily on query term location and query te…

Is a hammer amoral? You can bonk someone on the head with it or build a house. So the answer is yes.

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

#63

Post by Glennross »

Benjammer wrote: post #16
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…

He is both implying that "Technology" === Google, and that Google shouldn't be held accountable for any human problems.

(Please respect netiquette.)

Sundar Pichai of Google must also have Google in his mind when he speaks about technology.

Google is responsible for its actions.

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

#64

Post by patrickaljord »

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…

> 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 not the problem.

The problem is that in order to invest in "clean energy, sanitation, sustainability, and ethical food production" you need a huge amount of capital. A good way to build capital is to invest into technologies that bring a lot of profit such as advertising, you can then use this capital to invest in more noble, less profitable technologies (in the short term at least) such as new medicines, better transportation etc which is what Google is doing to be fair.

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

#65

Post by mrguyorama »

ucaetano wrote: post #54
danharaj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing? No one was ever going to carpet bomb a wedding.

> No one was ever going to carpet bomb a wedding. Not a wedding, indeed, an entire town, with possibly dozens of weddings happening at the same time. Plus hospitals, schools, etc. If you had to pick between carpet bombing and smart bombs, which one would you pick? (And consider you don't have a choice, like the trolley problem, you NEED to pick one).

>And consider you don't have a choice

How do we not have a choice to NOT bomb a desert on the other side of the world?

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

#66

Post by justicezyx »

cortesoft wrote: post #39
samontar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are government agencies you voted for. American citizens want leaders who bomb countries. Go vote a non-interventionist or isolationist if you want someone else. Face the truth. If you want no killing, Your enemy isn’t Google, it’s your neighbour.

I mean, I did vote for someone who doesn't want to do those things. That person lost.

Sure, then it's not Google's fault either.

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

#67

Post by darawk »

ameister14 wrote: post #58
ucaetano wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people The world is complicated, and things are never as simple as that. Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing? It is always too easy to ignore the world as it is and focus on a utopian case. War will happen, with whatever tools are available.

>Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing? That's not the alternative, though. Drones are used in hundreds of situations where without them, the US simply wouldn't have taken action.

And it's your belief that not taking action would be better?

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

#68

Post by hathawsh »

The accurate thing to say is that technology magnifies people's will. People use technology to spread both good and bad messages, to entice people to do better or worse things, to help others or to put them down. The spread of technology means more people have more power to do either good things or bad things. Therefore, it's on all of us to use technology for good and build technologies that help good work flourish.

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

#70

Post by tome »

ameister14 wrote: post #59
tome wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've carpet bombed other places when they didn't have the alternative of a targeted strike at a wedding.

Really? When and where?

Throughout the 20th century across the globe.
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