Great stuff. Signed. I like how you wrote the section about rationality as a preferred but not exclusive pathway to knowledge. As to these three frameworks, I think that a pragmatist can strategically act like an optimist or pessimist in particular contexts but needs ultimately to avoid extending that viewpoint to the level of the systemic or the universal. I think of this pragmatic viewpoint as having an a posteriori mode of operation to it rooted in its empiricism. We speak to specific contexts only. Jumping from the specific to the general is something we resist unless the evidence compels us. That said, as a manifesto, I recommend resisting the urge to over clarify every word and clause. Each section should have a call and response cadence that circulates around the extreme options this position is not. The current draft does this nicely. Thanks for putting so many of my thoughts into word.
At the same time, Guy is onto something. There are ethical values immanent this piece that do have potential universal reach, and surprising, in this moment, this quasi relativist is okay with that. This values need to be underlined and emphasized. I feel this very strongly in this moment and context. 😋
I like this. A lot. I think I’d like to see a little more on our commitment to understanding the impact on the planet of our tech choices. There’s a lot of digital waste produced by our efforts that ought to be factored into our thinking.
I think you touched on the impact to the environment in the original text. I’d like to see that flushed out a bit.
I admire the effort to manifesto a level-headed response to those writing about technology from the extremes. I notice that you bump up against pragmatism as a philosophical tradition here and in your essay What is Truth? but you don't dig in much to what James and Dewey have to say directly on these questions. I think you'd find their writing helpful in sketching out what techno-pragmatism as a social movement might look like. They were writing more than a hundred years ago, so some of the problems we're wrestling with were not visible to them, but others such as how science works in a democracy and the relationship between capitalism and social change driven by technology were very much their concern. Thanks for the thoughtful writing at the intersection of philosophy and machine learning tech, and congratulations on hitting 2,000 subscribers!
Signing up for this. There are many trade-offs, and humans offer important context and we need better ways to bring together a global consensus. Managing value and impact across the planet is a difficult task as people tend to be mired in their locale and impervious to the rest of the world. There are psychological and ecological effects that come from the distribution of the technologies. we need more systems thinking and sci-tech literacy to avoid people following the optimist/pessimist routes and understanding that they are the ultimate decision makers but also need to bridge gaps of knowledge and support their fellow humans in learning. As machines get fed more information to process and disseminate, it's important to recognize the fallacies of such tech as well.
You can sign me up! Thanks for doing the revisions. I am thinking about how we pragmatists don’t make quite the splash that the other sides do. We are measured in our response. We just don’t piss off as many people. Might not bode well for the movement as an internet phenomenon. But good ideas sometimes need a longer incubation period.
I need to reread this but I liked it a lot. Vitalik Butering published a post on his blog some weeks ago that is in the same line. I found it very interesting and I'm publishing a sort of review of it in January.
I think I would sign onto this as well, although I'd want to reread carefully a few times to be sure... but the intention is right, and this is very well thought out.
I might add that I don't think that the biggest obstacle is the free market. It's probably also one of the greatest drivers of progress, but perverse incentives happen with or without government intervention (sometimes also because of it). With that said, the best tool against this tendency is education, and that's what you're doing here. Well done!
Alejandro, I stumbled across this in notes, thus I am new to your blog and lacking context, so some of what I say may be material you have discussed elsewhere. I read through this twice to ensure I understood things. The first time through, the paragraph about markets perplexed me. On rereading, I think I understand that you want to allow markets to operate within limits and acknowledge there are times when markets might not be appropriate. I'm struggling with this, in part because of negative feelings I have towards markets, but also because of the very complex maneuvering of businesses, financiers, the military, and the intelligence establishment in the creation and dissemination of many technologies. This portion troubles me.
I would like to suggest that educators at all levels and most disciplines have an additional duty. So much of our trouble with technology today may relate to our tendency to see it in isolation. We tend to do that with new technologies, failing to see how they are going to interact with other technologies; affect, or be affected by other aspects of society, economics, and culture; and understand their psychological and ecological effects. We also do this with technology as a whole. We need to help children, adolescents,and college students understand these connections and effects so they can make the kinds of informed value judgements you desire.
Great stuff. Signed. I like how you wrote the section about rationality as a preferred but not exclusive pathway to knowledge. As to these three frameworks, I think that a pragmatist can strategically act like an optimist or pessimist in particular contexts but needs ultimately to avoid extending that viewpoint to the level of the systemic or the universal. I think of this pragmatic viewpoint as having an a posteriori mode of operation to it rooted in its empiricism. We speak to specific contexts only. Jumping from the specific to the general is something we resist unless the evidence compels us. That said, as a manifesto, I recommend resisting the urge to over clarify every word and clause. Each section should have a call and response cadence that circulates around the extreme options this position is not. The current draft does this nicely. Thanks for putting so many of my thoughts into word.
At the same time, Guy is onto something. There are ethical values immanent this piece that do have potential universal reach, and surprising, in this moment, this quasi relativist is okay with that. This values need to be underlined and emphasized. I feel this very strongly in this moment and context. 😋
I like this. A lot. I think I’d like to see a little more on our commitment to understanding the impact on the planet of our tech choices. There’s a lot of digital waste produced by our efforts that ought to be factored into our thinking.
I think you touched on the impact to the environment in the original text. I’d like to see that flushed out a bit.
I admire the effort to manifesto a level-headed response to those writing about technology from the extremes. I notice that you bump up against pragmatism as a philosophical tradition here and in your essay What is Truth? but you don't dig in much to what James and Dewey have to say directly on these questions. I think you'd find their writing helpful in sketching out what techno-pragmatism as a social movement might look like. They were writing more than a hundred years ago, so some of the problems we're wrestling with were not visible to them, but others such as how science works in a democracy and the relationship between capitalism and social change driven by technology were very much their concern. Thanks for the thoughtful writing at the intersection of philosophy and machine learning tech, and congratulations on hitting 2,000 subscribers!
Signing up for this. There are many trade-offs, and humans offer important context and we need better ways to bring together a global consensus. Managing value and impact across the planet is a difficult task as people tend to be mired in their locale and impervious to the rest of the world. There are psychological and ecological effects that come from the distribution of the technologies. we need more systems thinking and sci-tech literacy to avoid people following the optimist/pessimist routes and understanding that they are the ultimate decision makers but also need to bridge gaps of knowledge and support their fellow humans in learning. As machines get fed more information to process and disseminate, it's important to recognize the fallacies of such tech as well.
A fantastic and balanced counter-response to the now-infamous Marc Andreessen's "Techno-Optimist Manifesto." I can get on board with this!
Nicolas Potkalitsky, Ph.D., AI Literacy and Education, USA
You can sign me up! Thanks for doing the revisions. I am thinking about how we pragmatists don’t make quite the splash that the other sides do. We are measured in our response. We just don’t piss off as many people. Might not bode well for the movement as an internet phenomenon. But good ideas sometimes need a longer incubation period.
I need to reread this but I liked it a lot. Vitalik Butering published a post on his blog some weeks ago that is in the same line. I found it very interesting and I'm publishing a sort of review of it in January.
This is very good. Let's spread it far and wide.
I think I would sign onto this as well, although I'd want to reread carefully a few times to be sure... but the intention is right, and this is very well thought out.
I might add that I don't think that the biggest obstacle is the free market. It's probably also one of the greatest drivers of progress, but perverse incentives happen with or without government intervention (sometimes also because of it). With that said, the best tool against this tendency is education, and that's what you're doing here. Well done!
Alejandro, I stumbled across this in notes, thus I am new to your blog and lacking context, so some of what I say may be material you have discussed elsewhere. I read through this twice to ensure I understood things. The first time through, the paragraph about markets perplexed me. On rereading, I think I understand that you want to allow markets to operate within limits and acknowledge there are times when markets might not be appropriate. I'm struggling with this, in part because of negative feelings I have towards markets, but also because of the very complex maneuvering of businesses, financiers, the military, and the intelligence establishment in the creation and dissemination of many technologies. This portion troubles me.
I would like to suggest that educators at all levels and most disciplines have an additional duty. So much of our trouble with technology today may relate to our tendency to see it in isolation. We tend to do that with new technologies, failing to see how they are going to interact with other technologies; affect, or be affected by other aspects of society, economics, and culture; and understand their psychological and ecological effects. We also do this with technology as a whole. We need to help children, adolescents,and college students understand these connections and effects so they can make the kinds of informed value judgements you desire.