You're not alone in your fears, I've been thinking a lot about the same questions over the last few years especially.
What gives me comfort is acknowledging the limits of technology in general. Even though technology has profound material affects on human life, it ultimately is a system with its own motives that are totally alien to human interests. I thought "Technopoly" by Neil Postman did a pretty good job summarizing this.
Humankind has always been and always will be codependent with technology, but ultimately, human culture is a distinct thing with distinct values from technology. To find meaning we need to take seriously philosophy, tradition, and religion. Taking the thoughts of people who lived before the major technological shifts as seriously (if not more) than of people today made all the difference in my mindset.
I admit, I'm still pessimistic about our technological future -- uniquely worried about some profound harm coming down the pipeline. But that's not the same as despair. I still feel like I can have a meaningful (even if very small) part to play in the story of humankind, separate from the story of technology.
This is basically where I stand to source optimism.
I think tough unemployment for white collar jobs is coming. The best automation allegedly exists in whatever that catch all term for corporate processes tech, and there’s that data that tech recognized lung cancer scans better then radiologists. Also, I think the odds of redlining and deep invasions of privacy for insurance rates via always-on apps while your drive or w/e are pretty high in the short term.
But, the full-on oh no dystopia is an ETL/data eng challenge and resulting innovation away. That’s also the area that’s usually a mess with companies aggregating and using the data to do XYZ.
Jaron Lanier/Siren Servers makes an argument that basically that ETL challenge will be what stops a really bad outcome, as the Siren Servers that do the analysis will collapse under the weight of their data.
What gives me comfort is acknowledging the limits of technology in general. Even though technology has profound material affects on human life, it ultimately is a system with its own motives that are totally alien to human interests. I thought "Technopoly" by Neil Postman did a pretty good job summarizing this.
Humankind has always been and always will be codependent with technology, but ultimately, human culture is a distinct thing with distinct values from technology. To find meaning we need to take seriously philosophy, tradition, and religion. Taking the thoughts of people who lived before the major technological shifts as seriously (if not more) than of people today made all the difference in my mindset.
I admit, I'm still pessimistic about our technological future -- uniquely worried about some profound harm coming down the pipeline. But that's not the same as despair. I still feel like I can have a meaningful (even if very small) part to play in the story of humankind, separate from the story of technology.