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New Technology Should Be Neither Feared Nor Trusted (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: How should we think about new and future technologies? The two main stances seem to be extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. A better approach would be careful planning and management. Optimists tend to overlook the fact that the technological successes of the past required a lot of social engineering before their benefits became widely shared. Countries like Maoist China and North Korea implemented perverse economic systems that withheld the bounty of modern technology from most of their citizens. And poor countries didn't really begin to beat poverty until decades after colonialism ended. Pessimists, meanwhile, often assume that new technologies can be stopped in their tracks by act of popular will. They probably can't. Even the most impoverished, repressive regimes of the 20th century adopted new technologies, and often suffered their worst consequences. Scientific research and invention, meanwhile, can be forbidden in one country or another, but probably not at the global level: Someone, somewhere, will study even the scariest ideas.
A better approach, then, is technology management. We should be as realistic as we can about each innovation's potential benefits and dangers. And instead of thinking about how to suppress new technologies, we should think about how to regulate them and channel them toward broad social benefit. Emerging technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence are at our doorstep, and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. But letting them develop haphazardly entails large risks. Instead, government and industry need to be funding proactive efforts to bring them into widespread, well-regulated use. In the end, technology is what we choose to make of it.
A better approach, then, is technology management. We should be as realistic as we can about each innovation's potential benefits and dangers. And instead of thinking about how to suppress new technologies, we should think about how to regulate them and channel them toward broad social benefit. Emerging technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence are at our doorstep, and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. But letting them develop haphazardly entails large risks. Instead, government and industry need to be funding proactive efforts to bring them into widespread, well-regulated use. In the end, technology is what we choose to make of it.
Exactly as far as I could shot-put a lead-lined, concrete-filled 1970's Buick pimpmobile with a broken pinkie finger in a 100G environment.
And that's if I'm feeling naive and charitable...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Until it says "aren't you done yet? or do I need to get the special oil *again*"?
it got you this far
Reasonable regulation of new technology for the better of mankind is not missing because there's only overly optimistic or pessimistic people.
It is missing because those who see a chance to personally profit from the new technolgy fear that their profits could be limited by regulation, and those who expect to not personally profit from a new technology would rather like to not see it being used at all.
then we shoot the other guy.
Technology fundamentally breaks society in a capitalist world. Markets simply don't exist in a post high tech society.
I watched as software was something people controlled to something stolen on the other side of the internet. The average person is incapable of making rational long term decisions regarding technology.
Videogames are a case in point. We are already in a dystopia, the idea that we aren't is a bit of bullshit. You have no market power where big companies can force policy and you can't do shit about it.
People who believe in the free market at this point are idiots, you can't hold any organization accountable when they are 100's of miles away from you. The idea that 'the free market decides' is bullshit.
The average person is much too stupid and uninformed to even participate in a modern high tech capitalist economy.
Things like league of legends and dota 2 are already dystopian software - it's the rise of the ignorance and stupidity of the masses that enables mass privacy invasion via entertainment and other means.
New Technology Should Be Neither Feared Nor Trusted
How should we think about new and future technologies? The two main stances seem to be extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. A better approach would be careful planning and management.
Can't we just ignore it until it becomes either established, obsolete, or discarded technology? We have protocols (however poor) for handling those things.
The skyrocketing rates of isolation, mental illness, and suicide driven by social media aren't to be feared? How about increasing - and increasingly feasible - efforts by monopolistic corporations unshackled by free speech protections to thought police and censor people, especially considering the ever-increasing percentage of the world's communications that travel through their servers?
This basically sums up the relevance of this wonderful piece of written work focusing on splitting truism hairs.
Instead, government and industry need to be funding proactive efforts to bring them into widespread, well-regulated use
Isn't this is what we have been doing for some time already, ever since the environmental, financial, building, medical and food safety became an issue? The only exception is when the unfounded religious (bad theology) and philosophical beliefs have festered in the legislature and prevented sensible public discussion on the issues.
In 1990 I did not anticipate that anyone like Vladimir Putin could hack the presidential election with it.
Before that if you wanted to hack an election, you had to do it the old fashioned way, by buying the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Morning Journal, like Hearst did.
What an amazing world we live in.
its apathy
its not that I fear new technology, I really just dont give a flying fuck about it. Its not like the stuff coming out today or in the near future is as ground breaking as the bycycle, the automobile, the phone the computer, the celphone, hell even the smart phone
its the same damn shit over and over again that no one really wants but gets shoved onto us, then praised as a "technical innovation"
optimism. hope.
pessimism. doubt
Learn to construct your thoughts without isms. You can not solve for isms. Jews know this. JudaISM.
Or perhaps gassy? Do you have a point to get to after your colorful metaphor?
Should you be really fat or incredibly thin? Probably better to be somewhere in the middle, claims report.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As in a reason- and fact-based stance towards new things? Good luck with that. Most people are far too stupid to be able to even begin to understand anything new, they go straight for the emotional response. And that boils down to either "this thing is going to make everything better" or "this thing is going to kill us". It is not even that people do not have enough intelligence, they just refuse to use it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In the end, technology is what we choose to make of it.
No, it's not some lump of clay you can shape into any form you want. It's like saying we can turn heroin into a good thing by regulating it instead of suppressing it. Some technology is overwhelmingly good. Some technology is overwhelmingly bad. Most are in the middle, but even then you can't really pick and choose the pros and cons. Very often you either use it, or you don't. Like say camera phones, today kids are worried they'll be secretly photographed or filmed naked in the shower. We didn't have that problem, sure you can make rules about it but to act like you can regulate where, when and why people use their camera phones is folly. And it has a lot of great advantages too, though I suppose the Amish would disagree..
Society and technology is like two balls held together by a rubber band bouncing through a flipper game. Sometimes we use technology to change society, sometimes technology changes us and we're only dealing with the fallout. I think it's presumptuous to think that if we can choose that path, sometimes the pull of technology is so strong that you might steer it a bit in one direction or the other but the overall change is a near inevitability and it's all but impossible to predict what you set in motion. Which is not to say that we should just give up and become some sort of tech determinists, but that sometimes it washes over us like a hurricane. You can prepare up front, you can clean up afterwards but you can't really regulate the storm. The storm doesn't listen.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Did you ever notice that in the capitalist "free" market first world that people are never satisfied? No matter how much technology progresses we are never happy. We cannot be. The greatest enemy of the system is contentment. Being ok with what you have means you need no more. "The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want." You see, this means that when the Lord is your Shepard, you shall not be in want - you shall be content. "Thou shall not covet your neighbor's ass..." do not lust after what belongs to your neighbor. "One cannot love God and Money, he must hate one and love the other". The lust for money is a lust for power for what good is money except for influence over another who shares insatiable desire? Our whole world is fueled by this discontent, this insatiable want that no matter how much we have, its never enough. We have become godless idolators who live to collect more and more until ultimately we die. Another wasted life. Do we not know that we are on the road to destruction? Do we not know that all the great kingdoms before us, Rome, Spain, Great Britain, Athens and others like them all fell for the same reasons? The lust for comfort makes a man weak. There is a reason why it works that way. Find that reason and you'll find the truth.
The notion that governments and committees can somehow act to make things better in reference to technology is over the top dangerous. Obviously even the US can not keep corruption from being the driving force in government. the notion that such groups could make things better with laws and regulations is sick. To start with a technology that is disturbing and disruptive can turn around and be a wonderful technology. Uber is an example. Numerous groups described Uber as a beast from hell. Now we find that it works far better than taxis at less than half the price to the user. We can all imagine the fights that will break out when over the road transport goes robotic. Fortunes will be made and lost as well. Instead of trying to regulate technology what the government can do is make certain that every single person in the nation has a decent income whether they work or not. As long as buyers have money to spend businesses can make sales. If a large number of people have no disposable income then businesses will collapse. Other areas can be controlled as well. Quality fish products are vanishing from our store shelves. The export of every bit of fish and shell fish is now standard policy as many areas of the world can pay more for seafood than Americans can. The simple answer is to disallow the sale of any seafood products to foreign nations or companies. This will increase the health of US fishing grounds and the abundance of fish and allow the fishing industry to make a living selling their product at much lower prices. This type of social planing is something that government is equipped to deal with. Items that involve technology or science are not well dealt with in a voting booth.
I love technology but I know that we should be very weary of our own technological advancement because of the amount of power it can give a small group of people or a single individual. Technology itself is harmless (until it starts thinking for itself) but it's the sociopaths that exploit technologies in the worst possible way that you should fear because they will take advantage of it. This means that all new technology should be viewed through the lens of "how could someone use this against me" because it's going to happen.
Welcome to the dystopian present where a large portion of the population is addicted to some smartphone applications as a result of neuroscience.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Main?
What a moron.
Try "loud".
Sheesh.
Slash drop: when you slit your wrists from the incessant Chinese water-drop torture.
Ignored then.
Another Microsoft kiddie stating the end times are near. This is all so wonderful now if you will please just vacate the internet for us as nobody needs these silly puritanical belief systems. By the way congratulations on getting fiber in your little hick town.
Technology is not what we consciously choose to make of it; it is like water: it finds its own level. If a thing works, and there is a perceived profit or benefit from using it, it will be used and it will be used recklessly to maximize profit or perceived benefit.
E Proelio Veritas.
i don't fear nor trust technology management.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Your type is always presenting false dichotomies.
Abolish capitalism is ALWAYS the 3rd option.
This is slashdot, everything new is bad!
New technology is either a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not my problem. Also not my problem if it's a hazard, as long as I sell my shares before those pigeons come home to roost like tears in the rain.
So you're basically Exhibit A in proving the article correct. OK then.
Emotional decision-making is bad. Evidence gathering, thorough review, and ongoing assessment are good. News at 11.
Why do we have to tell people to stop being mindless cheerleaders or bed-wetters? Maybe we need to push critical thinking harder in school.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Wow. Did I forget my *humor* tags again?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As with so many things attributed to tech, this isn't a technology problem. (it's the old "[insert normal everyday thing] on a computer!" that is so often patented as novel, or legislated as if it was completely different from [insert normal everyday thing])
If you've ever dealt with any organization, and any change is proposed, you'll always get the majority of people immediately jumping in to 2 equally unreasonable camps:
1) We must make this change because all change is good, and anyone standing against it is just afraid of change!
2) We must not make this change because all change is bad, and anyone pushing it just doesn't understand what it is that we do!
Unfortunately both groups are morons, and the few actually smart people take a completely different approach:
3) What exactly is changing? How does it compare with what we do now? What are the pros and cons of this particular change? If the pros outweigh the cons, then we should try the new way, if the cons outweigh the pros, we should stick with what we've been doing.
Unfortunately I'm always shocked to see how small a group is in category number 3, and how large a group is in categories 1 and 2, in fact the numbers are so ridiculous that decisions on change are almost always made by people in either category 1 or 2, and rarely by those in category 3.
"But letting them develop haphazardly entails large risks. Instead, government and industry need to be funding proactive efforts to bring them into widespread, well-regulated use. In the end, technology is what we choose to make of it."
Spoken like a true socialist. If there is technological peril in our future, it is this kind of flawed thinking that will promote and magnify it.
Can we not try to learn from the mistakes of the past before pushing on into the future?
How do you regulate something that a) you don't understand, b) have never encountered, and c) have no idea the potential of? If you listen to interviews with tech entrepreneurs, you find that none of them knew the paths their invention would take once the world got its hands on it nor the ultimate scope. Not to mention that regulators end up captured by those they regulate and are frequently employed as enforcers who kill competition. Early stage regulation would amount to strangling nascent companies and technologies at birth.