Our present is pretty dystopian to be fair.
Trump is almost 1:1 a character straight from Transmetropolitan.
Then you have people like Elon that are straight from any cyberpunk media corporate heads.
The parallels between the themes of a cyberpunk dystopia and the present are drawing pretty close.
We just don’t get any of the cool shit like cybernetic implants.
We will but they’ll be owned by Musk et al
And if your don’t pay your bill, your eyes will shut down, vision as a subscription service mwah
The new iSight, for only 69.99$/mo.
It’s actually $69.69/mo (nice), please be more accurate next time sir.
I agree, but sometimes I think, imagine you were in the middleages and your village just gets raided by a Ghengis Khan battalion or a Viking tribe or something, your wife and daughter get raped and killed in front of you, your frinds killed, you get chosen for blood eagle for later on in the day. Wtv middleages scenario, or any other ancient lawless period of time you choose, these events were not that much unlikely to happen. What word do we use for that? Not dystopian but what? Were things ever better than what they are now? Maybe democracy was an interesting experience, convenient for times when the beer flows easy out of the barril, and everyone’s happy. Now, the tide is changing, ressources are scarce, environment is changing, we’re now 8 billion and counting. Maybe dystopian times were always inevitable. I will resist it sure, but, thinking rationally, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope honestly. Unless Aliens show up to straighten us up or something wild like that.
This has nothing to do with the Middle Ages. Stop bringing up shit that doesn’t matter.
Lobsters
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I am sorry, but I am not buying his point. Every technological change that had significant impact on our economy (fire, iron making, machinery, electronics, computers, internet) benefited most of the people. I challenge you to name even one counter example.
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You are making very different argument, with which I actually agree. But his point was counter argument to the statement that technology benefited us in the past. And his counter argument is bad and just wrong.
AI is nothing like what was in the past. That should be the argument, not that in the past technology did not benefited us.
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I find his statement about wind mills without any merit. I am not historian and forgive me for being lazy, but if If I ask ChatGPT4 about it, here is the answer I get:
The invention of the windmill had a substantial impact on peasant life, particularly in medieval Europe. Before windmills, much of the labor-intensive tasks like grinding grain, pumping water, and other mechanical work were done manually or with the help of animals. The introduction of windmills automated these processes to some extent, making life easier for peasants by reducing their labor burden.
The windmill can be considered one of the key innovations that started moving societies away from purely manual labor, allowing people to focus on other tasks and thereby improving overall quality of life. While it didn’t entirely revolutionize the peasant lifestyle overnight, it was a step towards greater efficiency and productivity.
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Yes, I understand that it is not really a proof, but at least some evidence that his statement is simply hot air.
Humanity is already plunging into dystopia without AI. Changing A.I. Doesn’t matter as much as changing our economic system, and flaunting of wealth and power to ensure it only gets worse. A.I. Just makes it more immediate and obvious.
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I’m really worried about what will happen when a paradigm-changing technology is in the hands of a precious few. The last few times went alright. But will this time be different?
The last time was social media, and that hasn’t has benefited anyone except the shithead billionaires who got rich off of it. Social media is an astounding disaster.
The Fediverse is the first pebble rolling down the hill of corporate internet. 3D printers, AI generated media, right to repair, modular phones and laptops, all are the beginning of the end of mega tech companies in the consumer sphere. Our grandchildren will look at us the same way we look at medieval societies.
Bless your mouth. I hope you’re right.