> We think civilization is progress, and progress is civilization, that classical liberal ideas and the scientific revolution are the necessary conditions of this progress.
The author must be working from a very funny definition of the word "civilization." Most of the world's civilizations espoused few or no liberal ideas, and predate the scientific revolution.
Besides, his core thesis is obviously flawed. If progress is everything, how is it that the "golden ages" of everything from physics, to art, to pharmaceutical drug development, are so clearly behind us? If we must take a narrow view, there are a number of states that are materially poorer than they were 30 years ago. And why do we need a new, codified philosophy of technology when our grandfathers were able to build the world without it? Seems to me that the extremely online author has a solution in search of a problem.
> only if technologists seek this wisdom can we ensure human flourishing in the modern technological age.
Or alternatively, keep technologists well away from policy making.
Once the web/mobile/advertising boom finally finishes up (and we are nearly there) and all these things are commodified, then nobody will care about 'the modern technological age' because there will be no money.
> Two years ago, I had a moment of profound reflection. The second of our two toddlers had just been born. Two AI startups I founded had just been acquired for $400 million. Struck by these events, I chose to embark on the perennial human quest—to understand the good life and the good society.
> Gebru has used the acronym TESCREAL to criticize what she sees as a group of overlapping futurist philosophies: Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism. She considers this to be a right-leaning influence in Big Tech and compares proponents to "the eugenicists of the 20th century" in their production of harmful projects they portray as "benefiting humanity".
The author must be working from a very funny definition of the word "civilization." Most of the world's civilizations espoused few or no liberal ideas, and predate the scientific revolution.
Besides, his core thesis is obviously flawed. If progress is everything, how is it that the "golden ages" of everything from physics, to art, to pharmaceutical drug development, are so clearly behind us? If we must take a narrow view, there are a number of states that are materially poorer than they were 30 years ago. And why do we need a new, codified philosophy of technology when our grandfathers were able to build the world without it? Seems to me that the extremely online author has a solution in search of a problem.