
Tim Cook: Technology Should Serve Humanity, Not the Other Way Around - rch
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608051/tim-cook-technology-should-serve-humanity-not-the-other-way-around/
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federal
So is he going to lobby for a massive overhaul of Foxconn's employment
practices?

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webwielder2
Apple has done more than any other American company to improve working
conditions in China.

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ebbv
Even if that's true, it does not mean they have done enough.

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blipmusic
That's fair enough as long as other companies and their customers are held
equally responsible. Just because we sometimes/always use linux does not mean
the hardware we run it on has an equally "clean" background. Also, we buy too
much stuff, meaning too much stuff is being produced... etc.

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xroche
Does it mean that technology companies should pay their taxes, to serve
humanity, rather than playing tax optimization tricks ?

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aphextron
Don't blame individual companies for taking advantage of a broken system. This
is a political issue, not a business issue.

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collyw
Didn't Apple make special deals with Ireland? Doesn't sound like everyone else
was offered these.

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metaphorm
more context for the headline quote. FTA:

 _" While he calls AI “profound” and increasingly capable of doing
unbelievable things, on matters that require judgment he’s not comfortable
with automating the human entirely out of the equation. “When technological
advancement can go up so exponentially I do think there’s a risk of losing
sight of the fact that tech should serve humanity, not the other way around.”_

he's talking about AI here.

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euyyn
> there’s a risk of losing sight of the fact that tech should serve humanity,
> not the other way around

Whoever thinks for even a moment that humanity should serve technology?

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metaphorm
the ones who own the technology

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paapi__gudiya
Why is the Hacker News community up-voting these blatant PR pieces? This
statement coming from Tim Cook seems like a joke.

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blazespin
Read the article. It's practically a death knell for iOS. If iOS can't come to
grips with figuring out how to let AI get more access to the user, it could
lose the AI race against Google.

Already, people are installing Google Assistant on their iPhones. You have to
understand, that the future may make most apps other than games and
entertainment, completely irrelevant. You just want a Web Browser and an AI
Agent.

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threatofrain
What is the other way around -- that humanity should service technology?

What does humanity servicing technology mean? That depends on who is
controlling the technology, and that often means corporations and the elite
classes that control it on top.

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mdotk
humanity serves technology... like being glued to a screen all day

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meesterdude
This is a pretty ironic statement, given their entire product design is built
to serve apple, and the users are often secondary to that or ignored entirely;
such as making UI more difficult on purpose so you're more inclined to use
siri, or buying music instead of bringing your own.

I dont see AI at apple being any different. Its for them FIRST, us second, if
at all. "humanity" may as well mean corporations since they are comprised of
humans, but the general public will bare the costs in the end.

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eridius
> _given their entire product design is built to serve apple, and the users
> are often secondary to that or ignored entirely; such as making UI more
> difficult on purpose so you 're more inclined to use siri, or buying music
> instead of bringing your own._

That's simply not true, and it's a really offensive statement for pretty much
anybody working at Apple. There's no company I can think of that cares _more_
about the user experience than Apple, and here you are claiming that they're
doing the exact opposite.

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soperj
Apple is extremely user-hostile, they make it hard to do anything they don't
want you to do with YOUR device. It's simple things like using uncommon screws
internally, or soldering in the ram, or requiring a certain set of bits at the
front of your hard drive, or making it so the batteries cannot be removed.

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gnaritas
That's not user hostile, that's user friendly, those things enable them to
delivery a standard experience (something you cannot get on a droid) on their
appliance to users who by the way love the shit out of them for how well their
phones work. You might not like Apple, but their users do precisely because of
those things. Apple sees their phones as appliances, not as personal computers
to be customized; that approach has earned them die hard loyal fans who love
those appliances as is. We don't all want to hack our phones, I'll take an
iPhone over a droid any day, it's a much better experience.

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ErikBjare
I think you're right, but that kind of thinking is what leads to less open
devices and software, which in turn leads to technology serving whoever
controls it first and foremost.

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gnaritas
An open market requires choice, including the choice for closed appliances. As
long as alternatives exist, there's nothing wrong with closed platforms, those
who want choice have Droid. Open devices and software come at a cost, they
don't deliver the same experience you can get on a closed appliance that due
to tight control over hardware and software can deliver a consistence
experience impossible to deliver otherwise, this has always been Apple's way
and it's how they deliver the experience they do.

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soperj
It's not impossible to deliver otherwise. Apple could open source IOS and it
wouldn't preclude them from doing exactly what they're going to do.

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gnaritas
Non sequitur. They could not deliver "their" experience without locking down
"their" hardware/software on "their" devices to keep it under control thus
avoiding all the issues faced by the droid camp. Whether they could or should
release iOS to run on other hardware has nothing to do with anything being
discussed.

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soperj
What are you even arguing at this point? What's the difference between every
android phone and an apple aside from the openness of the software? No one is
providing open hardware.

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gnaritas
> What are you even arguing at this point?

Ask yourself that question.

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blazespin
Intense article. If you read it carefully and between the lines, you see the
real future battle lines between iOS and Android, and they center around AI
and privacy.

