
“What Have We Done?”: Silicon Valley Engineers Fear They've Created a Monster - efm
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/silicon-valley-engineers-fear-they-created-a-monster
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ilaksh
I believe that one thing that will happen is that we will see distributed
technologies take off and they will break the marketholds of some of these
massive technopolies like Uber or Amazon etc. That will not stop the
commoditization of labor however or prevent those jobs from being completely
replaced by robots.

I think we will need to infuse these distributed technologies into our
institutions in order to create a society that works with them. For example,
we need distributed databases that can give real numbers for resource
availability if we are going to be able to ensure that everyone has their
minimum needs met if we can't rely on wages to be adequate anymore. AIs keep
getting more powerful so this isn't going to just affect an underclass. On the
other hand if we have accurate resource numbers and efficient use of them then
maybe we can find a way to adjust wages and perhaps even add many more jobs by
finding new ways to leverage AI and automation in symbiotic ways.

To me brain computer interfaces are actually going to be critical in terms of
ensuring that humans stay relevant and.. useful to other humans. It doesn't
make sense to just stop all development of technology and forfeit all of the
benefits. We need to adjust.

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pokk
> I believe that one thing that will happen is that we will see distributed
> technologies take off and they will break the marketholds of some of these
> massive technopolies like Uber or Amazon etc.

Seem very unlikely. People have been saying that forever, but it is only
getting less likely. For instance the Internet is probably the worst it has
ever been for distributed technologies. Probably only a major reorganization
would change that. Which isn't likely to happen with all the companies relying
on centralization becoming increasingly influential, if not dominant. Even
society is probably worse than it has been for at least a few decades for
creating something outside of the norm. Large tech is the new big oil or
whatever.

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ilaksh
It is very unlikely in the immediate present as those companies are very
entrenched, that is true. But I think that with the momentum and popularity
Ethereum has, with the new sharding and scaling capabilities they are working
on, it will probably become extremely widely used. Ethereum and or other
related technologies. It will be a total paradigm shift, but that is actually
a normal aspect of technological evolution. It is speculation, but time will
tell.

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SpecialistEMT
Time will tell but i strongly doubt blockchain will have a huge impact on real
market events and technologies.

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angersock
Did nobody read and understand _Manna_?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_\(novel\))

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qohen
The author, Marshall Brain, has the novel online:

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

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aglavine
First comes innovation, then regulations. No big deal.

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zaptheimpaler
The point of technology and capitalism is to make mankind more efficient and
do the same things with less resources. The gig economy reflects that
companies are automating more and need less labor.

This should be a bood thing, except we're stuck in a system that needs
everyone to have a job. I don't know exactly what a new system would look
like, but i think it will have to start with a little more socialism and
distributing the vast resources a tiny few people have more equitably.

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petra
Workers aren't significantly more efficient in this new gig economy. This
doesn't justify low pay, gigs and economic instability.

