Digital technology

Had a thought, dangerous I know, and like to think I’ve been for its point for many a year and it’s that: human progress (especially digital technology, of which AI I’m looking at you) does need (pretty stringent, but adaptable if pertinent over time) rules and regulations, made collectively and as inclusively and as best we currently can, not the dismantling and removal of them.

Rules and regulations can always (even should) be made more relevant and efficient over time but not taken away so as to continue the capitalist / neoliberal (and pretty populist politics of today) hegemonies.

By keeping and better opening up and enforcing rules and regulations it hopefully shows and proves lumbering and oft-conservative (with a small c, not the political party of the big C!) state institutions will benefit from the changes so as to better serve the people and to keep the workings of society in check and actually provide a more egalitarian and trusting society, rather than one always allowing (often without responsibility) free speech, the market, monetary profit, banning legitimate protest etc. etc. which is, or very close to, anarchy and actually not helpful to our human species (and, essentially all the others’ and the planet’s) survival at all . . . in a minor conclusion to these part we’ll leave the human-induced climate crisis, which is actually an interconnected issue driven partially by current contemporary mainstream attitudes and obsessions (especially with digital tech so-say saving everything but never changing the underlying faults that created these issues in the first place) and that try to keep it all business-as-usual rather than seeing steady opportunity and progress through collective learning and empowerment rather than the (monetary) bottom line and endless competition.

Anyway, that thought I had was inspired by reading Nexus, by Yuval Noah Harari.

It’s not his, it’s mine . . .

Digital technology and its advancements alone will not save us, but taking more collective responsibility and being more collaborative in and around politics to allow that to happen will assist the enacting of more regular and adaptable (state) rules and regulations to keep any societal progress accountable and transparent (whether governmental or corporate). An approach like that goes toward supporting, not stifling, facts, truths, meaningful interactions and even order and doesn’t just continue reducing everything to a binary, us or them, nature if you do or don’t agree.

With better enforced and clearer frameworks visible to and for the (real, human) people, more (political, social and economic) involvement, constructive conversations, debates, findings and safety can be found and achieved.

Breort Thought

. . . but then I got to this bit (quoted below) in that book, that sort of says, ‘Be careful, counter approaches are not always okay’, or something like that . . .

[…] Climate change can devastate even countries that adopt excellent environmental regulations, because it is a global rather than a national problem. AI, too, is a global problem. Countries would be naive to imagine that as long as they regulate AI wisely within their own borders, these regulations will protect them from the worst outcomes of the AI revolution. Accordingly, to understand the new computer politics, it is not enough to examine how discrete societies might react to AI. We also need to consider how AI might change relations between societies on a global level.

Yuval Noah Harari Nexus

The Western world certainly needs to work together much more than it does in its currently over-individualised and competitive ways within and without itself and it does not need to, necessarily, lower its ambitions. But, it does need to lessen its incessant growth and profit mindset so as to better learn and allow more inclusive ways of operating so that involvement, empowerment and meaningful long-term change can happen, for all and for the state institutions we all look to for guidance, responsibility even assistance sometimes.