spring blossoms

Went to a really interesting but terrifying talk on our AI future. The talk was very general and lacked all technical details but was somewhat convincing. So broadly, Howard Covington reckons that self driving cars will happen within the next decade, energy systems will be decarbonised and agriculture totally revolutionised by having lab grown meat and vertical indoor farms. Factories will become fully automatic and adaptible to be able to change production by software. These massive changes are driven by huge Chinese and American companies. According to Covington Europeans think to small. AI will be pervasive and social behaviour will get nudged by algorithm: to do certain things like traveling, go to the cinema, etc you need to have collected points that you get by behaving well and loose by misdemeanours. The talk ended with his prediction of collapse in 2050 due to climate change. He reckons that technology is not the problem but vested interests won't let the required reconfiguration happen. All this talk about algorithmic social control made me think about our freedoms in the West. So, we are quite free to express our opinions (even if they are quite vile) but that doesn't change very much. Remember the millions that demonstrated against the Iraq War? In the end we are also in our hamster wheels with little choice. If we are lucky we ended up with an enjoyable job. Still, important things such as Brexit and climate change are dealt with in such a way that most people will loose out. In the end the fundamental question is, what/who is society run for? Are all our achievements for the benefit of every one in every country or for a select few? I think I can live with algorithmic nudges provided they benefit everyone.