31 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
    1. we're not in the economy of the 1950s anymore. And we act as though we are, that finance is this productive force and it's building, it's building wealth. Well, for the most part, it's not. It's, there's so much financialization, so many financial assets, that they've become an extractive force. And a big piece of this 00:06:37 is that we're not really distinguishing between productive investments and speculative investments
      • for: quote - Marjorie Kelly, quote - finacialization, progress trap - financialization, progress trap - capitalism, speculative investing

      • quote: Marjorie Kelly

        • we're not in the economy of the 1950s anymore.
        • And we act as though we are, that finance is this productive force and it's building, it's building wealth.
        • Well, for the most part, it's not.
        • There's so much financialization, so many financial assets, that they've become an extractive force.
          • And a big piece of this is that we're not really distinguishing between
            • productive investments and
            • speculative investments
  2. Dec 2023
    1. it's extremely dangerous to create such an autonomous agent when we do not know how to control it when we 00:58:22 can't ensure that it will not Escape our control and start making decisions and creating new things which will harm us instead of benefit us now this is not a 00:58:34 Doomsday Prophecy this is not inevitable we can find ways to regulate and control the development and deployment of AI we we don't want
      • for: quote - Yuval Noah Harari - AI progress trap, progress trap - AI, quote - progress trap

      • quote it is extremely dangerous to create such an autonomous agent when we do not know how to control it, when we can't ensure that it will not escape our control ad start making decisions and creating new things which will harm us instead of benefit us

      • author: Yuval Noah Harari
      • date 2023
    1. i think the most dangerous thing about ai is not 00:47:11 super smart ai it's uh stupid ai it's artificial intelligence that is good enough to be put in charge of certain processes in our societies but not good enough to not make really 00:47:25 bad mistakes
      • for: quote - Thomas Homer-Dixon, quote - danger of AI, AI progress trap

      • quote: danger of AI

        • I think the most dangerous thing about AI is not super smart AI, it's stupid AI that is good enough to be put in charge of certain processes but not good enough to not make really bad mistakes
      • author: Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • date: 2021
  3. Oct 2023
    1. every time we try to pick at one piece of this polycrisis we end up actually creating problems in other contexts
      • for: polycrisis, quote, quote - polycrisis, quote - Nora Bateson

      • quote

        • every time we pick at one piece of those polycrisis we end up actually creating more problems in other contexts
      • author: Nora Bateson

      • example

        • climate change If we do, all emissions suddenly, we will create an economic crisis, then without money, a health and social crisis
  4. Sep 2023
    1. "Unless you've felt it, unless you've cried over the fact that we really thought we were making the world a better place with the internet..." He pauses. "We 100 per cent believed that." Humanity, he says, is living through "two super old stories. One: be careful what you wish for, because you'll get it... And two: creators losing control of their creations."  He should know, because he is one of those Dr Frankensteins. As the son of Silicon Valley royalty (or at least nobility), he spent years merrily building technology that he believed was changing the world. It did, but not in the way that he hoped.
      • for: progress trap, progress trap - Aza Raskin, progress trap - internet, quote, quote - Aza Raskin, quote - progress trap, quote - progress trap - internet

      • quote

        • Unless you've felt it, unless you've cried over the fact that we really thought we were making the world a better place with the internet... We 100 per cent believed that.
    1. science progresses generally not because of a thing that we see but because we increase our ability to perceive

      for: quote, quote Aza Raskin, quote - progress, quote - scientific progress and expanding perception

      • quote
        • science progresses generally not because of a thing that we see
        • but because we increase our ability to perceive
      • author
      • Aza Raskin
      • date: 2023
    1. “How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
      • for: progress trap, unintended consequence, playing God, Elon Musk - Starlink - Ukraine, Elon Musk- Crimea, Elon Musk - nuclear war, quote, quote - Elon Musk - nuclear war - starlink - crimea
      • quote
        • How am I in this war?
        • Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars.
        • It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.
      • author: Elon Musk
      • comment
        • the Tech genius could not predict the progress trap of starlink being used by the Ukrainian army to send submarine drones to blow up Russian ships
        • so he was forced into a position of playing God
  5. Aug 2023
    1. The instinctual BS-meter is not enough. The next version of the ‘BS-meter’ will need to be technologically based. The tricks of misinformation have far outstripped the ability of people to reliably tell whether they are receiving BS or not – not to mention that it requires a constant state of vigilance that’s exhausting to maintain. I think that the ability and usefulness of the web to enable positive grassroots civic communication will be harnessed, moving beyond mailing lists and fairly static one-way websites.
      • for: misinformation, disinformation, fake news, quote, quote - Greg Shatan, quote - misinformation, progress trap - misinformation, progress trap - digital technology, indyweb - support
      • quote
        • The instinctual BS-meter is not enough.
        • The next version of the ‘BS-meter’ will need to be technologically based.
        • The tricks of misinformation have far outstripped the ability of people to reliably tell whether they are receiving BS or not
      • author: Greg Shatan
        • lawyer, Moses & Singer LLP
          • not to mention that it requires a constant state of vigilance that’s exhausting to maintain.
        • I think that the ability and usefulness of the web to enable positive grassroots civic communication will be harnessed,
          • moving beyond mailing lists and fairly static one-way websites.
    2. the gig economy is enabled by technology; technology finds buyers for workers and their services. However, given the choice between an economy with many gig workers and an economy with an equivalent number of traditional middle-class jobs, I think that most people would prefer the latter.”
      • for: gig economy, progress trap, unintended consequence, quote, quote - unintended consequence, quote - progress trap, quote James Mickens
      • quote
        • the gig economy is enabled by technology;
        • technology finds buyers for workers and their services.
        • However, given the choice between
          • an economy with many gig workers and
          • an economy with an equivalent number of traditional middle-class jobs,
        • I think that most people would prefer the latter.
      • author: James Mickens
        • associate professor of computer science, Harvard University
    3. We will use technology to solve the problems the use of technology creates, but the new fixes will bring new issues. Every design solution creates a new design problem, and so it is with the ways we have built our global networks.
    4. Technology and social innovation intended to overcome the negatives of the digital age will likely cause additional negative consequences. Examples include: the decentralized web, end-to-end encryption, AI and machine learning, social media.
      • for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, unintended consequence, quotation - unintended consequence
      • quote
        • Technology and social innovation intended to overcome the negatives of the digital age
          • will likely cause additional negative consequences. Examples include:
            • the decentralized web,
            • end-to-end encryption,
            • AI and machine learning,
            • social media.
      • author: Larry Masinter -internet pioneer, formerly with Adobe, AT&T Labs and Xerox PARC, who helped create internet and web standards with IETF and W3C
    1. there is a disconnect between the long period of evolution that honed our humanity and the short period of rapid technology change we are facing.
      • for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, quote Brian Southwell, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International
      • quote

        • We are likely to make some gains in personal health, are likely to face some collective concerns in terms of environmental health and
        • are not likely to cope with the alienation and despair that is a part of a life lived largely online.
        • In the latter case, there is a disconnect between the long period of evolution that honed our humanity and
        • the short period of rapid technology change we are facing.
      • author: Brian Southwell

        • director, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International
    1. Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
      • for: quote, quote - Stowe Boyd, quote - progress trap, quote - unintended consequences, unintended consequences, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap
      • quote:
        • Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
      • author: Sowe Boyd
        • consulting futurist on technological evolution and the future of work
      • paraphrase
        • In an uncontrolled hyper-capitalist society,
          • the explosion in technologies over the past 30 years has only
            • widened inequality,
            • concentrated wealth and
            • led to greater social division.
          • And it is speeding up with the rise of artificial intelligence,
            • which like globalization has destabilized Western industrial economies while admittedly pulling hundreds of millions elsewhere out of poverty.
        • And the boiling exhaust of this set of forces is pushing the planet into a climate catastrophe. -The world is as unready for hundreds of millions of climate refugees as it was for the plague.
        • However, some variant of social media will likely form the context for the rise of a global movement to stop the madness
          • which I call the Human Spring
        • which will be more like
          • Occupy or
          • the Yellow Vests
        • than traditional politics.
        • I anticipate a grassroots movement
          • characterized by
            • general strikes,
            • political action,
            • protest and
            • widespread disruption of the economy
          • that will confront the economic and political system of the West.
        • Lead by the young, ultimately this will lead to large-scale political reforms, such as
          • universal health care,
          • direct democracy,
          • a new set of rights for individuals and
          • a large set of checks on the power of
            • corporations and
            • political parties.
        • For example,
          • eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns,
          • countering monopolies and
          • effectively accounting for economic externalities, like carbon.
    2. with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all!

      -for: quote, quote - Jennifer Jarratt, quote - progress trap, progress trap, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, quote - unintended consequences, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap - quote: with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all! - author: Jennifer Jarratt - co-principal of Leading Futurists LLC

    3. The big tech companies, left to their own devices (so to speak), have already had a net negative effect on societies worldwide. At the moment, the three big threats these companies pose – aggressive surveillance, arbitrary suppression of content (the censorship problem), and the subtle manipulation of thoughts, behaviors, votes, purchases, attitudes and beliefs – are unchecked worldwide
      • for: quote, quote - Robert Epstein, quote - search engine bias,quote - future of democracy, quote - tilting elections, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
      • quote
        • The big tech companies, left to their own devices , have already had a net negative effect on societies worldwide.
        • At the moment, the three big threats these companies pose
          • aggressive surveillance,
          • arbitrary suppression of content,
            • the censorship problem, and
          • the subtle manipulation of
            • thoughts,
            • behaviors,
            • votes,
            • purchases,
            • attitudes and
            • beliefs
          • are unchecked worldwide
      • author: Robert Epstein
        • senior research psychologist at American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
      • paraphrase
        • Epstein's organization is building two technologies that assist in combating these problems:
          • passively monitor what big tech companies are showing people online,
          • smart algorithms that will ultimately be able to identify online manipulations in realtime:
            • biased search results,
            • biased search suggestions,
            • biased newsfeeds,
            • platform-generated targeted messages,
            • platform-engineered virality,
            • shadow-banning,
            • email suppression, etc.
        • Tech evolves too quickly to be managed by laws and regulations,
          • but monitoring systems are tech, and they can and will be used to curtail the destructive and dangerous powers of companies like Google and Facebook on an ongoing basis.
      • reference
    4. Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
      • for: progress traps, progress, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, unintended consequences - technology, unintended consequences - digital technology, progress trap - quotations, quote, quote - progress trap
      • title: Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
      • authors: emily A Vogels, Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson
      • year: June 30, 2020
      • description: a good source of quotations on progress traps / unintended consequences of digital technology from this Pew Research 2020 report on the future of the digital technology and democracy.
    5. Technology’s greatest contribution to social and civic innovation in the next decade will be to provide accurate, user-friendly context and honest assessment of issues, problems and potential solutions
      • for: quote, quote - Barry Chudakov, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
      • quote
      • paraphrase
        • Technology’s greatest contribution to social and civic innovation in the next decade
        • will be to provide
          • accurate, user-friendly context and
          • honest assessment of
            • issues,
            • problems and
            • potential solutions / comment - indyweb /
        • We are facing greater accelerations of
          • climate change,
          • social mobility,
          • pollution,
          • immigration and
          • resource issues.
        • Our problems have gone from complicated to wicked.
        • We need
          • clear answers and
          • discussions that are
            • cogent,
            • relevant and
            • true to facts.
        • Technology must guard against becoming a platform to enable targeted chaos,
        • that is, using technology as a means to
          • obfuscate and
          • manipulate.
        • We are all now living in Sim City:
        • The digital world is showing us a sim,
          • or digital mirror,
        • of each aspect of reality.
        • The most successful social and civic innovation I expect to see by 2030
        • is a massive restructuring of our educational systems based on new and emerging mirror digital worlds. / comment: This bodes well for Indyweb for education/
        • We will then need to expand our information presentations to include
          • verifiable factfulness that ensures any digital presentation faithfully and
          • accurately matches the physical realities.
        • Just as medicine went from
          • bloodletting and leeches and lobotomies to
          • open-heart surgery and artificial limbs,
        • technology will begin to modernize information flows around core issues: urgent need, future implications, accurate assessment.
        • Technology can play a crucial role to move humanity
          • from blame fantasies
          • to focused attention and working solutions.”
    6. I’m going to start with the U.S.; technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism where profitability isn’t the goal; perpetual return on investment is. Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations reinforce capitalist agendas.
      • for: corporate power, technology - capitalism, capitalism - exploitation, Danah Boyd, progress trap
      • paraphrase
      • quote
        • technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism
          • where profitability isn’t the goal;
          • perpetual return on investment is.
        • Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations
        • reinforce capitalist agendas.
        • Innovation will require pushing past this capitalist infrastructure to achieve the social benefits and civic innovation that will work in the United States.
        • China is a whole other ball of wax.
        • If you want to go there, follow up with me. But pay attention to Taobao centers.
        • We haven’t hit peak awful yet.
        • I have every confidence that social and civic innovation can be beneficial in the long run
          • with a caveat that I think that climate change dynamics might ruin all of that
        • but no matter what, I don’t think we’re going to see significant positive change by 2030.
        • I think things are going to get much worse before they start to get better.
        • I should also note that I don’t think that many players have taken responsibility for what’s unfolding. -Yes, tech companies are starting to see that things might be a problem,
          • but that’s only on the surface. -News media does not at all acknowledge its role in amplifying discord,
          • or its financialized dynamics.
        • The major financiers of this economy don’t take any responsibility for what’s unfolding. Etc.
      • author: Dana Boyd
        • principal researcher, Microsoft Research
        • founder, Data & Society
    7. What won’t change is people’s tendency toward gossip, tribalism driven by gossip and the ability of anybody to inform anybody else about anything, including wrongly. The only places where news won’t skew fake will be localities in the natural world. That’s where the digital and the physical connect best. Also expect the internet to break into pieces, with the U.S., Europe and China becoming increasingly isolated by different value systems and governance approaches toward networks and what runs on them.
      • for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Doc Searls
      • quote
        • What won’t change is people’s tendency toward gossip,
          • tribalism driven by gossip and the ability of anybody to inform anybody else about anything,
            • including wrongly.
        • The only places where news won’t skew fake will be localities in the natural world.
        • That’s where the digital and the physical connect best.
        • Also expect the internet to break into pieces, with
          • the U.S.,
          • Europe and
          • China
        • becoming increasingly isolated by different value systems and governance approaches toward
          • networks and
          • what runs on them.
    8. I see no reason to think that the current situation will change: Tech will cause problems that require innovative solutions and tech will be part of those solutions. Machine learning (ML) is right now an example of this
      • for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - David Weinberger
      • quote: I see no reason to think that the current situation will change:
        • Tech will cause problems that require innovative solutions and
        • tech will be part of those solutions.
        • Machine learning (ML) is right now an example of this
      • author: David Weinberger
        • senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
    9. Can our fundamental human need for close community be restored or will we become more isolated, anxious and susceptible to manipulation?
      • for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Jonathan Grudin
      • quote: Can our fundamental human need for close community be restored or
        • will we become more isolated, anxious and susceptible to manipulation?
      • author: Jonathan Grudin
        • principal researcher, Microsoft
    10. If tech doesn’t contribute to solving some of the problems it creates, we are doomed
      • for: quote, quote - Esther Dyson, quote - progress trap, quote - progress traps, progress trap,
      • quote: "If tech doesn’t contribute to solving some of the problems it creates, we are doomed"
      • author: Esther Dyson
        • internet pioneer
        • journalist
        • entrepreneur
        • executive founder of Way to Wellville
    1. the problems I've mentioned are being tackled by groups of people 00:11:18 sad thing is those people are often operating in silos just concerned to solve their particular problem not realizing that if they don't have the whole picture they may solve their 00:11:31 problem and cause problems in other places
      • for: indyweb, silos, emptiness - example, entanglement - example, progress trap
      • paraphrase
      • quote
        • all the problems I've mentioned are being tackled by groups of people
        • sad thing is those people are often operating in silos just concerned to solve their particular problem
          • not realizing that if they don't have the whole picture they may solve their problem
          • and cause problems in other places
      • author
        • Jane Goodall
      • comment
        • the Indyweb and SRG strategy is designed specifically to mitigate progress traps through radical collaboration built into the communication and information system itself.
  6. Jul 2023
    1. The common definition of a progress trap is derived from the book’s cover text: “..it is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently.”
      • for: progress trap
      • definition
      • quote
        • progress trap
          • A progress trap is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently.
      • author
        • Dan O'Leary
      • source
    1. Since  humanity is a small product of nature, he can by definition not control nature. To believe that he can is a delusion.
      • for: progress trap
      • quote
        • Since humanity is a small product of nature, he can by definition not control nature. To believe that he can is a delusion.
      • Author
        • Dan O'Leary
  7. Jun 2023
    1. scary smart is saying the problem with our world today is not that 00:55:36 humanity is bad the problem with our world today is a negativity bias where the worst of us are on mainstream media okay and we show the worst of us on social media
      • "if we reverse this

        • if we have the best of us take charge
        • the best of us will tell AI
          • don't try to kill the the enemy,
            • try to reconcile with the enemy
          • don't try to create a competitive product
            • that allows me to lead with electric cars,
              • create something that helps all of us overcome global climate change
          • that's the interesting bit
            • the actual threat ahead of us is
              • not the machines at all
                • the machines are pure potential pure potential
              • the threat is how we're going to use them"
      • comment

        • again, see Ronald Wright's quote above
        • it's very salient to this context
    2. the biggest threat facing Humanity today is humanity in the age of the machines we were abused we will abuse this
  8. May 2023
    1. there is this growing Chasm between our Paleolithic brains and what we're designed for and the niches we're built to inhabit and this new technologically infused world that we're living in
      • Comment

        • Elise says
          • "there is this growing Chasm between
            • our Paleolithic brains and
            • what we're designed for and
              • the niches we're built to inhabit and this new technologically infused world that we're living in
          • We have changed our environment so rapidly and so radically and we have not kept pace with that change
            • so either we keep changing the environment or
            • we change ourselves to fit the environment and
            • I think the fact that we're consistently making these commodified decisions in which
              • we do expunge more and more of our of our Humanity in favor of profit
              • in favor of short-term decisions i
              • n favor of such abysmal thinking when it comes to complex systems like the human body
            • it is a testament to the fact that these brains are not built for this world and
            • we are not going to be adequate stewards of this system
              • that is now so complex that to keep it held together
            • you actually need a new form of intelligence beyond what we are"
        • Elise Bohan' statements perfectly echo Ronald Wright's famous quote on the nature of progress traps
      • comment

        • I think, however, that Wright would agree more with Mary and less with Elise in Elise's contention that
          • we need a new form of intelligence beyond what we are
          • applying progress to our own cognitive abilities
            • may create the biggest progress trap of all
    1. “To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”
      • quote worthy
        • “To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”
        • Ronald Wright
  9. Mar 2023
    1. our practical faith in 00:09:05 progress has ramified and hardened into an ideology a secular religion which like the religions that progress has challenged is blind to certain flaws in its credentials 00:09:18 progress therefore has become myth in the anthropological sense and by this i don't mean a belief that is flimsy or untrue successful myths are powerful and often partly true
      • Quote
  10. Feb 2023
    1. progress creates problems that are or seem to be soluble only by further progress

      Progress quote -" progress creates problems that are or seem to be soluble only by further progress".