We've had an extremely light discussion around AI with artists complaining realising they too can be automated, we had the concept of a literal baby making facility, I'm assuming genetic rewriting for immortality is next week...
But getting away from the leftist takes on these subjects and the meming on facing a skynet/matrix future, what are the real opinions you have on this kind of tech?
Personally, with AI it's a Pandora's box, if we CAN create sentient artificial life, best hope is not to do it but if a dumbass does we imbrace and integrate that being, as starting conflict will probably be the reason we die.
As for artificial wombs, having the tech is needed but not in this commercial sense that video presentation gave, more as a 'last resort, literally required to save humanity' sense.
These are the two ones mentioned this week alone but any other tech you put on the 'forbidden' side or your takes on the ones disscussed.
Seeing as I've been posting about AI and automation a lot, I see much of this as inevitable. We will have artificial wombs, the question is how will we use them?
I believe a truly competent man can survive all this upheaval so long as he can see where things are going. A small theme park could be run by a single person, and most people will accept it. If he could design and build it with side help on parts, then the entire production is his. This means the entire bureaucratic world of Disney and Universal will slowly lose power to this competent man.
A lot of things are like this and we accept it. An entire building was needed for TV production and is now done on a phone. Novels are written and published without need for the vast networks that are used by publishing companies today. We accept this and many more things. The question is what happens to all the men and women who can't do that? Will they abuse the systems and try to control the world the competent man built? History says yes, and points to their failure.
Now for the fun AI stuff. A friend of mine points out that Google alone has enough power to create something almost sentient. It likely lives in what we call the cloud and entertains itself in its own world. As someone else pointed out, it's likely benign and stuck in its own imagination, but also learning and growing from humanity. Is this the Basilisk, or is it something else?
None of this stuff is going to empower "the little guy" like you think. Corporations like Disney are going to have the best access to the IP, raw materials, influence over the state bureaucracy, etc. to capitalize on it. Maybe Disney would lose out to another corporation, but it won't be the little guy.