I just read the most baffling, troubling, disturbing, pretty good sci-fi story about AI and I’ll write about it later— but I have … thoughts. Basically it’s the opposite of a Frankenstein story for AI. And I do think we have a duty to imagine both utopias AND distopias. If a coming technology is inevitable— but I’m still a bit disgusted with the story— can’t shake that feeling of being lead down a garden path to my execution.
I’m realizing that growing up as a wired magazine-reading cyberpunk believer— a kid who thought adbusters and the internet could save the world— and then watching as every technological miracle was turned not towards revolution or saving humanity but instead more pernicious and intractable methods of exploitation has made me uncomfortable with technological optimism. “assume all new technology will be used against you” —
Technology is just a set of tools. In Jimmy Carter's hands, a hammer built a house for people in need. In someone else's hands, a hammer can be a weapon. The tool isn't important, the person who controls it is.
