Why I am not a Techno-utopian
The techno-utopians do a great job of showing the potential of technology to solve huge problems and give us a better world. I generally see this potential the same way they do.
My fundamental difference with them is a particular kind of skepticism. Just because things could work out well doesn’t mean they must work out well. For instance, the best technology isn’t always the one that gets adopted. Sometimes this is relatively innocuous, and sometimes it’s dangerous.
It’s well known that inferior VHS beat superior Betamax. Less well-known is that environmentally sound thorium nuclear power lost out to risky uranium nuclear power due to politics.
Our capacity to make bad decisions continues. For instance, according to a NASA report, it would cost around $150 million to protect the US power grid from long-term shutdown in the event of an increasingly probable major solar flare, with estimated damage exceeding $1 trillion. Politicians won’t make the investment.
While such a solar flare may not hit Earth for decades, railroad accidents happen far more frequently. The derailment of Amtrak train 188 in Philadelphia in 2015 killed eight people, and some train disasters have been far worse. They could be devastating. Trains are used to carry highly toxic and flammable substances through the hearts of major metropolitan areas. The US Congress has offered only token funding for Positive Train Control (PTC); a technology capable of preventing such accidents,
One problem is that the word “best” is meaningful only within a context. It could refer to cost, reliability, service of a particular purpose, or service of a different purpose. My best may not be your best. However, if I’m the one in charge of making the go/no go decision on a major piece of technology, we will all have to live with that decision; probably for a lot longer than most of us imagine.
I want to build Celebration Societies where Citizens are aligned upon a specific set of mutually agreed values that guide all societal decisions. I want those values to be the result of careful deliberation and open, evidence-based debate. I want it recognized that technology is not some magical genie that grants all wishes, but rather a great yet neutral power that augments human capabilities for good—or for ill.
Artificial intelligences, and the robots they control, may provide us with universal abundance that works to the liking of everyone, or it may work to the liking of some and the displeasure or even horror of others. It is entirely plausible, as pundits like Stephen Hawking have said, that the abundance these systems generate may be hoarded by their owners.
If our leaders continue to view the world through a Scarcity Game mindset, the hoarding of capital and means of production will only accelerate. Those less powerful or wealthy will fight for scraps, or live on whatever charity the masters care to dole out. This is one of the crucial blind spots of techno-utopians: if technology is controlled by only a few, its benefits will be allocated according to the wishes of those few.
The only way I know to assure universal abundance is to have localized distribution and control of automated systems of production in the context of an Abundance Game. Likewise, localized systems allow for multiple experiments to be conducted in parallel, with the results of those experiments informing us all.
Human progress is sloppy, and includes many mistakes. By placing our societal experiments within local Celebration Societies, we have the chance to keep the consequences of those mistakes local and only duplicate successful experiments elsewhere. In this way, we can embrace the potential of technology to create a wondrous future, while remaining aware of how human nature affects the deployment of that technology.
In addition, many–not all–techno-utopians seem to brush aside concerns about how advancing automation will disrupt the lives of those not so well endowed with assets or astute as themselves. History suggests that the process will be brutal for many of our fellow human beings.
Consider, for example, how a generation of aerospace engineers were thrown out of work when the US space program was effectively shut down. Many wound up flipping burgers; some killed themselves in despair. Those engineers were among the most technologically skilled of professionals.
That was a political decision and such decisions can be reversed. When automation decimates professions, it will not be reversible. How much worse will it be this time for people, especially those lacking technical competencies that can be redirected or retrained?
Finally, the whole concept of utopia is misguided. There is a section in the book, Never a Utopia. The reason is that utopia is a fantasy of some future perfected state without change. Who would really want that? Also, it’s not realistic.
A Celebration Society will be a scientific society, prizing the best available evidence. That evidence evolves. Science is a progressive unfoldment of truth. Ultimate truth is never attained, but only ever more closely approximated. Consequently, assuming we are able to create a Celebration Society, we will see continuous experiments and improvements. And that will keep life interesting!
[1] http://www.wired.com/2009/04/storms2012/