New essay: "How to be a wise optimist about science and technology?" michaelnotebook.com/optimism/ind... - ThreadSky

michaelnielsen.bsky.social • 88 days ago

New essay: "How to be a wise optimist about science and technology?"

https://michaelnotebook.com/optimism/index.html

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michaelnielsen.bsky.social•88 days ago

A little of what it's about:

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•88 days ago

Nice mental model: https://bsky.app/profile/moultano.bsky.social/post/3lc7nl2jq6c2i

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•86 days ago

A good encapsulation of a key underlying concern: "if this is as far as current methods for aligning individual interests with collective good get us, we're not on track for utopia when technology gets more powerful." https://bsky.app/profile/muireall.space/post/3lcb3oza7gk2k

marcelsalathe.bsky.social•87 days ago

Thanks for sharing. I have often wondered if long term thinking is futile (beyond physics). It would be hard to point at any time in history where humans were even marginally correct about the world after a few technological cycles. 1/

marcelsalathe.bsky.social•87 days ago

This led me to focus on possible outcomes in the short run, assuming that things will work out in the long run. It’s somewhat similar to the idea that if we all take care of our neighborhoods and our communities, large-scale society will be doing fine. 2/

marcelsalathe.bsky.social•87 days ago

I realize there is an oversimplification to this. But I think it is approximately correct. And it has a wonderful side effect, which is the wellbeing that comes from not worrying about things too far out, both in time and space, which we cannot control anyways (and a main source of today’s mood IMO)

tachikoma.elsewhereunbound.com•88 days ago

took a while to get through it, a lot to chew on. a couple years ago i tried to do what you mention, to sketch the hyper-entity. but i was and still am limited in my ability to convey it. i can only sum it up as i title the story i wrote, an "Opt-In Revolution".

tachikoma.elsewhereunbound.com•88 days ago

that in a kernel is my take on how to approach AI+ safety. don't force it on an unprepared world, or rather, friendly autonomous AI shouldn't force itself on us. retreat to the hinterlands and build seed cities, prototype for the future, then invite people to visit and see what is on offer.

dabacon.bsky.social•87 days ago

Great essay! I wonder a lot about biological inspired approaches to some of these problems. I suspect that there is a huge gap in our understanding of mechanisms for biology that span our current understanding of how we go from basic chemistry to us, and see these as solving existential threats.

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•87 days ago

Thanks Dave. Say more - do you mean the many signalling mechanisms that result in co-operation inside living organisms (or, sometimes, ecosystems)?

dabacon.bsky.social•87 days ago

Along these lines. In many ways “life” has navigated constant existential threats, layers and layers of history of battles that have gone wrong and battles that have gone right, and I wonder if there are ways to make technological development more like these systems.

dabacon.bsky.social•87 days ago

You can take the postdoc out of the Santa Fe Institute but you can’t take the Santa Fe Institute out of the postdoc.

dabacon.bsky.social•87 days ago

Also I’m jealous of your writing skills. I’ve read a lot of Michael Nielsen essays over the years (looking for in jokes, of course), this one is top notch and I think I even spotted a few new rhetorical devices that made me smile.

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•86 days ago

Thanks Dave. I'd actually be curious what those devices are. I wasn't conscious of it!

(Back at QIP 2009 you told me that you could see I'd put a lot of effort into improving my writing for my "Future of Science" essay in 2008. I found this observation very encouraging & inspiring!)

dabacon.bsky.social•86 days ago

Also was a very strange experience reading this right after reading https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/opinion/children-cancer-grief.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare We’re bad about dealing with death at the individual level so I guess it isn’t surprising we are bad at it at the species level as well.

dabacon.bsky.social•87 days ago

People sometime ask, because they think I am old, I guess, and therefore have some clue, I guess, what I would work on if I were back choosing a PhD. I think I’d work here, because I think understanding how life has navigated to where it is provides our best shot at not leading ourselves to ruin.

moultano.bsky.social•88 days ago

Still reading. One mental model I keep referring to for x risk is gambler's ruin, that random walks eventually hit zero, which is an absorbing state, and the higher the variance of the steps the faster you hit zero.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin

moultano.bsky.social•88 days ago

I'm also reminded of the book Forever Peace, where people discover both technology capable of destroying the solar system, and technology capable of expanding people's empathy so they're unable to conceive of hurting others, which counteracts it.

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•88 days ago

Oh, interesting example. I started Forever War way back in the day, and abandoned it, I should have kept going!

moultano.bsky.social•88 days ago

Forever Peace was a sort of spiritual sequel to The Forever War, but wasn't directly connected. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Peace

senthilv.bsky.social•87 days ago

Forever war was a remarkable work. I liked forever peace, I thought I would enjoy it more than I did. Some books get better as you age, so I am going to go back and try it again.

moultano.bsky.social•87 days ago

I haven't read it since highschool, I don't know how well it holds up. This discussion just jogged my memory.

nsaphra.bsky.social•88 days ago

My gf and I have been reading all the Hugo/nebula double crowns, but haven’t gotten to this one yet. We did read forever war, and I found the sexual politics fascinating, more so than the rest. Haldeman’s metaphor for coming back to the 60s from Nam is literally: what if your mom’s a lesbian now huh

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•88 days ago

Huh, what an interesting idea & list. I've read maybe half (of the novels), and they ranged from good to superb, for the most part: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hugo_and_Nebula_awards

jdp.extropian.net•87 days ago

This seems extremely relevant to your observations about the kumbaya attractor.
https://bsky.app/profile/jdp.extropian.net/post/3lc7l73l3fc2v

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