"The dead gaze of the machine staring back at us will become the forcing function we need to collectively resolve the death of god." - a very interesting problem!
For science fiction writers, I recommend Stanislaw Lem, who proposed an interesting measure of a civilization’s advancement: eventually, all advanced civilizations send their waste into the nearest star. This represents a technology that coexists with a thriving humanity/civilisation.
Lem is phenomenal, not just as a writer, but perhaps even more so as a thinker and futurist. Not many know of his non-fiction philosophy work where he goes deep on both human and non-human life: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816675775
So we have the resources but not the coordination to end world hunger. We can't coordinate on any sane geo-engineering experimentation even though our very survival may depend on it. Our inability to align human coordination both increases the need for AI alignment while providing no real model for doing so. We will never agree on any coordinated sacrifice, so our only chance to avert climate disaster is to make green energy cheap enough to be in everyone’s selfish interest to use it. Etc etc.
The incapacity is most pronounced when applied to challenges at the "planetary" scale, which I argue every advanced technology is converging on:
"The dead gaze of the machine staring back at us will become the forcing function we need to collectively resolve the death of god." - a very interesting problem!
For science fiction writers, I recommend Stanislaw Lem, who proposed an interesting measure of a civilization’s advancement: eventually, all advanced civilizations send their waste into the nearest star. This represents a technology that coexists with a thriving humanity/civilisation.
Thanks for implanting some mind viruses.
Lem is phenomenal, not just as a writer, but perhaps even more so as a thinker and futurist. Not many know of his non-fiction philosophy work where he goes deep on both human and non-human life: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0816675775
Thank you. I’ve added ‘Summa Technologiae’ to my reading list. I’ve read a dozen of his books, but not these essays.
P.S. I’m fortunate to read Lem in the original language, as I am a native Polish speaker :)
I find your third point quite interesting. Our incapacity to coordinate in what way exactly?
In all sorts of ways. I list a few in my post here: https://www.techforlife.com/p/our-coordination-paradox
So we have the resources but not the coordination to end world hunger. We can't coordinate on any sane geo-engineering experimentation even though our very survival may depend on it. Our inability to align human coordination both increases the need for AI alignment while providing no real model for doing so. We will never agree on any coordinated sacrifice, so our only chance to avert climate disaster is to make green energy cheap enough to be in everyone’s selfish interest to use it. Etc etc.
The incapacity is most pronounced when applied to challenges at the "planetary" scale, which I argue every advanced technology is converging on:
https://www.techforlife.com/p/our-planetary-predicament