Week 4 journal entry

This week's readings pushed me to see AI even more as a product of many parts of civilization. What stood out most was how polarized predictions on the future of AI are. On the one hand, many people are optimistic about the developing tech, and on the other, people predict ecological or existential collapse, but both are structured around universal assumptions about progress and control. Andreessen's manifesto made focuses on technology as a primary moral good and intelligence as something that could expand infinitely. He sees it less as a tool, and more as something that is stagnated by regulation or caution. Reading this alongside the Dark mountain manifesto showed a large contrast, as where Andreessen treats AI tech as the solution to our social and environmental crisis, Darl Mountain grames the myth of progress as the causation of these crisis. I tend to lean more towards the Dark Mountain narrative, as I have seen new tech and groundbreaking discoveries my whole life that never really turn into anything. The concept of "nothing ever happens" is something that I am well aware of and am starting to notice very often.

What this contrast clarified for me is that these discussions aren't technical agreements in their entirety,n but are also clashes between different concepts of what we are as humans, what our purpose is or what the planet is for. AI extinction arguments simply add another layer by challenging techno-optimism byt not rejecting progress outright but warning that restraint is required to keep the human story going. These warnings often possess the same civilization framing though and assume that humanities destiny is to build ever more powerful systems and that the stakes are universal rather than just ones affecting humanity.

Something I'd like to see or hear more thoughts on in class is how these dominant narratives (often fear mongering or over the top optimism) crowd out different ways of seeing the future of Tech. Some of what we have discussed points to art, decentering of our species and a change to story telling, but its not super clear how those sensibilities could shape development meaningfully. I wonder whether AI discorse is already doomed to be discussed as our salvation or undoing, or as we become more familiar with it as humans, it will be more clear the direction we are headed. Either way, it seems that certain people within government think that it is possible that we have AGI in 6 months and that it attacks the power grid and 98% of people in the US die in a month (ask Grok about what would happen if the power grid went down, it is terrifying --> There is also a really interesting book about this concept - Ted Koppell Lights Out