Category: Future

I have a theory that much recent tech development and innovation over the last decade or so has had an unspoken overarching agenda—it has been about facilitating the need for LESS human interaction. It’s not a bug—it’s a feature. … The tech doesn’t claim or acknowledge this as its primary goal, but it seems to often be the consequence.

I suspect that we almost don’t notice this pattern because it’s hard to imagine what an alternative focus of tech development might be.

I am not saying these developments are not efficient and convenient; this is not a judgement regarding the services and technology. I am simply noticing a pattern and wondering if that pattern means there are other possible roads we could be going down, and that the way we’re going is not in fact inevitable, but is (possibly unconsciously) chosen.

I’m also not saying that any of these apps and tech are not hugely convenient, clever or efficient. I use many of them. But from the automated checkout lines to self-driving cars, I see a trend that is accelerating, and I sense that as it does, human interaction will become rarer and therefore increasingly more difficult for people

Is there a downside?

There are arguments on both sides—some claim that jobs will arise for the technically unemployed, others say that they won’t.

The point is not that making a world to accommodate oneself is bad, but that when one has as much power over the rest of the world as the tech sector does, over folks who don’t naturally share its worldview, then there is a risk of a strange imbalance.

It’s a small step then from a worker that doesn’t care to a robot.

Source: David Byrne | Journal | ELIMINATING THE HUMAN

I predict that within my lifetime, the United States will arrest, try, and convict some parents for refusing to edit the genes of their child before he or she is born.

legislative majorities do believe that parents should be put on trial for withholding mainstream medical treatment when a child suffers greatly or dies as a result. And the medical treatments that are considered mainstream will change over time.

If the attendant medical procedures were as cheap and safe as a course of antibiotics, would it be unethical to deny a potential human gene editing to avert a serious disease? What if instead of a certainty of a serious disease, gene editing would reduce the chance of a typically fatal cancer by 90 percent? How about by 50 percent? 5 percent? Does it matter how much the gene editing technique would cost? What other confounding factors, if any, should enter into the picture?

Source: Will Editing Your Baby’s Genes Be Mandatory? – The Atlantic

As video games get better and job prospects worse, more young men are dropping out of the job market to spend their time in an alternate reality. Ryan Avent suspects this is the beginning of something big

it is possible that just as past generations did not simply normalise the ideal of time off but imbued it with virtue – barbecuing in the garden on weekends or piling the family into the car for a holiday – future generations might make hours spent each day on games something of an institution
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That view hinges, however, on a crucial distinction: are those dropping out to tune in to video-game worlds jumping, lured by the attraction of the games they play, or have they been pushed?

Other gamers tell similar stories: friends made while playing, skills they discovered or honed, discussions that led to jobs, and hours spent away from the troubles of a world that occasionally needs to be blocked out. Theirs are not the only stories. There is addiction. … games become the destructive vice of choice for some sets of players, taking the place of drugs or alcohol in a tragic but familiar narrative. But the game is a symptom of some broader weakness, sometimes of character, occasionally of mental health – and, perhaps, of society too.

the choices we make in life are shaped by the options available to us. A society that dislikes the idea of young men gaming their days away should perhaps invest in more dynamic difficulty adjustment in real life. And a society which regards such adjustments as fundamentally unfair should be more tolerant of those who choose to spend their time in an alternate reality, enjoying the distractions and the succour it provides to those who feel that the outside world is more rigged than the game.

Source: Escape to another world | 1843

A conversation about the end of work, individualism, and the human species between Derek Thompson and the historian Yuval Harari.

At the end of the 19th century, France, Germany, and Japan offered free health care to their citizens. Their aim was not strictly to make people happy, but to strengthen their army and industrial potential. In other words, welfare was necessary because people were necessary. But you ask the scary question: What happens to welfare in a future where government no longer needs people?
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The reason to build all these mass social service systems was to support strong armies and strong economies. Already the most advanced armies don’t need [as many] people. The same might happen in the civilian economy. The problem is motivation: What if the government loses the motivation to help the masses?

What is the meaning of life? Historically philosophers investigated questions that were interesting to only half a percentage of humankind.
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“What is ideal way to seek happiness?” isn’t a useful inquiry when the entire countryside is dying of plague.
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Yes, but once you are free from considerations of famine and plague, this becomes a much more practical question

you have a ominous prediction that humans will merge with the computers, algorithms, and biochemical devices that make our lives better. We will yield our authority and identity to data and artificial intelligence. What invention or innovation in the world right now is the best example of this future?
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I like to begin with the simple things. Look at GPS applications, like Waze and Google Maps. Five years ago, you went somewhere in your car or on foot. You navigated based on your own knowledge and intuition. But today everybody is blindly following what Waze is telling them. They’ve lost the basic ability to navigate by themselves. If something happens to the application, they are completely lost.

That’s not the most important example. But it is the direction we’re talking about. You reach a juncture on the road, and you trust the algorithm. Maybe the junction is your career. Maybe it’s the decision to get married. But you trust the algorithm rather than your own intuition.

On a case-by-case basis, this technology seems wonderful. It’s making me so much healthier and happier. Technology is rescuing me from the natural errors of misreading my future wants and needs. But over time, “I” have disappeared, because I have outsourced my identity to a biochemical analyst.

Source: The Post-Human World – The Atlantic

Baldwin argues that globalization takes shape in three distinct stages: the ability to move goods, then ideas, and finally people.

Technology will bring globalization to the people-centric service sector, upending far more jobs in rich countries than the decline in manufacturing has in recent decades. … The disruption won’t come because people will move more freely across borders, but because technologies will provide “a substitute for being there,” Baldwin says.

even if we put up trade barriers, the jobs we protect will be for robots, not people

You say governments need to do more for the losers of globalization. How?

We have to look for inspiration from northern European countries who have comprehensive retraining, help with housing, help with relocation. Typically they have the unions, governments, and companies working together to try and keep the social cohesion. It doesn’t always work, but at least they try and most people feel that the government is helping them.

Source: The most disruptive phase of globalization is just beginning, according to economist Richard Baldwin — Quartz