It makes perfect sense to me. Technology is going to be great, but it's not going to stop corporations from trying to make as much money as possible off burning fossil fuels for as long as possible, it won't get fascists out of power, it won't replace capitalism out the gate, it won't solve the climate crisis in a timely fashion (if for no other reason than those with AGI won't put much funding into constructing the solutions that it comes up with), it won't take the food we waste and get it to people who are starving.warpmass wrote: ↑Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:34 pmThis post makes no sense you say we will have AGI, etc, ect, etc, but things will be far worse.Vakanai wrote: ↑Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:13 am Depends on how you want to define optimism here. I think that we should have AGI, humanoid robots, cyborgs, and a lot of the amazing sci-fi dreams we've longed for since childhood. The technology is going to improve drastically, and dreams will become reality.
On the other hand I think that over a billion people alive today will have died of famine, war, disease, and climate change - all preventable, or once was, but we just didn't care to do anything about it until it was too late to do so. I also see humanity being divided far worse than now, like Civil War worse kind of divided. Climate change is going to be bad. Fascism will be even more widespread. Nuclear weapons might've seen use.
Basically the only positive thing I see is that technology will be better. Humanity will be worse. Far worse.
Yes, technology can solve all these issues. Robots will grow crops in vertical farms the size of skyscrapers and drones will deliver food freely to everyone - but people will starve before we get over our obsession with profit motives to allow that to happen. Machines will pull carbon out of the air to create wonder materials like diamond, graphene, and graphyne - but we're going to pump so much more carbon into the air this decade, not invest in the infrastructure to deal with rising oceans and increased mega storms and wildfires to reduce deaths before then. Machines will eventually remove the need for a money based society - but those in power today will resist such change and do all that they can to keep this flawed system that allows the horrors of poverty to continue for as long as possible. One day AGI will make most governmental choices for the benefit of humanity - but politicians and despots ruling over millions or billions just for themselves will fight it every step of the way.
It's not technology that's going to make for a piss poor future, it's humanity. Simple greed and egotism from the few, and a willingness to not fight them on it from the masses, has and will bring about horrors. Technology will alleviate and end many of this, when it's ready and when it's allowed to. But it's got to overcome the system of today and the powerful forces it props up. They'll resist it, and it will cost millions of lives while they do. Fascism is rising, prices are soaring, people refuse to be vaccinated or wear masks, and climate change and the war in Ukraine has made millions food insecure with talk of famine this year or next. The next several decades are going to see things get worse in all these human driven sectors. Until humans aren't the main driving force behind these things, there's not much to hope for. Technology is the one bright spot in all of this, but it's not going to solve these issues in an instant, even if it prints out the solutions for everyone in simple step by step instructions. It still takes people to get us there - and many will stand in the way. My long-term view of the future is bright and rosy. Fifty years from now should be the beginning of a new golden age. But the years to get there are gonna be hell.