For every technology you think will help you, remember people who make you miserable will use it too

July 11, 2024 by Joshua
in Nature

People keep asking how artificial intelligence (or blockchain, nuclear energy, fusion, or whatever the technology of the day) will help them.

People think, “Oh, AI will help me do X or Y” where X and Y are things they want to do. Maybe in sustainability they’ll use it to make some process more efficient, thinking it will reduce energy use and therefore depletion.

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Well, everyone else will use that technology too, including the ones causing what problems you’re trying to solve. They’ll drill deeper, extract faster, and lower costs do extract more profitably.

Most of our problems are caused by other people. For example, earth has plenty of resources, or would if so many people weren’t consuming them. Guns, abortion, taxes, migration, etc. . . all other people.

Nobody is trying to wreck the environment or step on your values. They value other things. Heads of oil companies want to make sure when we turn on the light switch the lights come on. They don’t say, “we’re trying to pollute” any more than you do when you fly or buy takeout or other packaged food.

Technology augments the values of the people and culture using it. It doesn’t help only you or only your values. Overall, it accelerates what we’re already achieving—not what we want to achieve but what we are achieving, including the unintended effects.

People get myopic over technology, thinking only of the parts they want.

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