The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
<i>For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently.</i><p>We really didn&#x27;t. At least, not at the time, and certainly not everyone. Plenty of people throughout history have been adamantly against the rapid progress of technology. The Luddites are the most famous group but there have been lots more.<p>Even if you ignore those people for being frankly a bit weird, the driving force behind technology for the first ten thousand or so years has been the improvement of the human race and to win in the struggle to survive. Those were definitely noble goals. Compare that to the past 200 or so years and much of the progress has been about the consolidation of power and wealth in the hands of a few <i>extraordinarily</i> rich people. The technological gains have been spread widely, sure, but they&#x27;ve come at a high cost. That&#x27;s different to the past where the gains have come with very little cost.<p>We <i>could</i> transform society to benefit <i>everyone</i> using technology if we wanted to. I suspect we won&#x27;t though. We&#x27;ll sell a few AI powered gadgets to the masses, and that will cause power over everyone to coalesce in the hands of a few people. That&#x27;s not really much of a win.