Society is heavily influenced by technology. Our modern lives are totally oriented around it. Therefore if you can predict technological developments you can predict the future.
Many people say we can't predict what technologies will be invented or how they will be used. This is false, because a lot of our current technology and technological habits were in fact predicted, and looking back we can see technology has followed a certain pattern of development.
Specifically, technology has developed according to whatever is convenient for its users, regardless of whether it is good for them in the long term or good for the rest of society. If we extrapolate this pattern into the future we can easily predict a lot of trends that will eventually become dominant in society through technology. We can do this by asking some basic questions about any hypothetical technology.
5 questions to predict the future
Questions to ask about any hypothetical technology, X:
- Is it possible (with near infinite time and cleverness) for humans to invent X without violating any laws of nature (physics and chemistry)?
- Is X going to make things more convenient for its users?
- In a society where X is common, will people be able to use X without any major personal downsides (e.g., severe illness, high risk of physical harm)? Detriments to lifestyle, relationships or mental health should be ignored because they are somewhat subjective and many people will think they can avoid them. Ignore detriments to friends and family.
- Can X potentially be mass produced or made cheaply available (relative to the benefit) to most people? If it needs to be custom-made or custom-performed for each user, consider how much the process could be automated or done en masse to make it cheap. Ignore the need for rare materials because new materials will be invented.
- Is there some other hypothetical technology that would do the job almost as well as X and might become cheaply available first or shortly after?
If the answers to questions 1-4 are yes and the answer to 5 is no, then you can be almost certain that X is eventually going to become a very popular technology around which the whole of society becomes organized. (Assuming this level of technological development hasn't already killed most of humanity). This is because the technology will be desirable for its personal convenience with low personal risk and no better alternatives, so there will be financial incentive to make it cheaply available and then lots of people will use it. If 1 and 2 are yes and 5 is no, X will be invented but is unlikely to become popular unless 3 and 4 are also yes. The reason most predictions about the future of technology have been wrong is either because they underestimated the time needed or because they failed to consider all of these questions, especially question 5.
Verifying the questions work
These 5 questions could have correctly predicted a lot about the world today. After the popularity of the train but continued use of the horse-drawn carriage, one could have used these questions to predict the invention and mass adoption of the horseless carriage (cars). After the invention of the radio, if you had asked these questions about worldwide near-instant person-to-person visual information transmission, you could have predicted not only television but something like the internet becoming popular.
You also could have predicted the invention and mass adoption of easy-to-use non-invasive contraceptives, IVF, genetic sequencing and GMOs, video games, pocket computers (smartphones), 3D printing, unmanned aircraft (drones) and lots more. At the same time, you would have avoided false predictions like mass adoption of jet packs (which would be very unsafe and uncomfortable without something to sit inside and keep warm, which is basically a small plane or flying car, yet to be made cheap), hoverboards, translucent holograms, lightsabers, or that cars and virtual reality were fads and that computers would only ever be for big companies.
Applying the questions to the future
Given the reliability of these questions, let's use them to evaluate some hypothetical future trends. For example consider AI as relationship companions. Questions 1-4 are all yes, given how AIs are already used as relationship companions and are cheaply available. The answer to question 5 is no, because all relationship companions must either be real humans or acting as artificial humans, i.e., artificial intelligence. Therefore relationship companion AIs will almost certainly become popular. (Unless we put a stop to technology or it kills/enslaves us first).
As another example consider sex robots. 1-4 are clearly all yes, but the answer to 5 is also yes because simulated sex (through virtual reality or fake sensory input wired into the brain) will be cheaper and more adaptable to people's fantasies, and there is no law of nature that prevents the perfect simulation of all types of physical touch. Therefore sex robots are almost certain to become popular only if they become cheaply available before good (functionally, not morally) alternatives like simulated sex. If we run through the questions for simulated sex we get yes for 1-4 and no for 5 because non-simulated sex will never be able to compete with perfectly simulated sex which is adaptable to all types of unrealistic fantasies. Therefore simulated sex will eventually become popular, even replacing the sex robots which may become popular first. Obviously the popularity and convenience of simulated sex will also sharply reduce the amount of real sex taking place. Artifical wombs will also become popular according to these questions, so real sex wouldn't even be needed for procreation.
If we consider easy-to-make weapons of mass destruction, 1 is yes and 2 is also yes because they offer a convenient means of killing large numbers of people. The answer to 5 is no because the only thing better at easily killing large numbers of people is a better easy-to-make weapon of mass destruction. Therefore these weapons will be invented. The question of mass adoption is irrelevant, as mere knowledge of these weapons becoming somewhat widely available (as they will if scientific AI is widely available) would trigger human extinction or near-extinction. This is the final result of technology.
If you reduce sex to the level of masturbation then that statement is correct. Otherwise it's not. A robot can never replace a human being. Not even a pet. You'll never be able to form an actual connection with a machine.
That's already been happening. And it's not the fault of technology or the availability of pornography.
Technology isn't the problem. How it is used is. Let's take opioids as an example. Without them a shit ton of medical procedures would be pretty much impossible. They're essential for saving lives. But if you use them as recreational drugs or doctors prescribe them without need they'll destroy or even outright end your life.
How did the opioids crisis in the US begin? Not because opioids were invented but because a Jewish family deliberately caused it to make money and perhaps because of other more sinister reasons.
You can look at all other current problems. Most of them weren't accidentally created. But even those that were are often being intentionally ignored and swept under the rug.
Technology only becomes a problem if used by people with evil intentions or retarded idiots. A gun in the hands of a chimp is dangerous. A gun in the hands of an evil person is dangerous. A gun in the hands of responsible person without evil intentions is an extremely useful tool.
Doesn't matter, people are already falling in love with AI (or at least think they are) and it's only going to get more intelligent and human-like.
What's the appropriate use of porn or a nuke that blows up the whole planet? It's pretty hard to think of one, so technology absolutely can be the problem. Technologies aren't neutral, they can tend towards evil and often do.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. But even if what you said were true, we should therefore prevent a lot of technologies from being widely available for retards and psychopaths to use. Nukes shouldn't be available for any retard to use, obviously. But who should have access to nukes? I don't trust anyone with them so the technology needs to be ended. And the main difference between a nuke and a gun is how many people they can kill. How dangerous does a weapon have to be before it crosses the line for you?
Obsession isn't love. People being obsessed with inanimate objects isn't a new phenomena. These people are mentally ill. They've not been made mentally ill by the LLM. Is it a problem? Yes.
LLMs shouldn't be designed in a way that they manipulate their users. But that manipulation is intentional once again. They've been programmed that way by the people controlling it. The technology itself is merely a tool. Could be a very useful tool if it wasn't deliberately used to manipulate its user.
Porn isn't technology. Porn has been around for as long as humanity has existed. And the 'appropriate' use is being consumed only by adults.
A nuke that blows up the whole planet doesn't even exist. But the appropriate use of nuclear technology is nuclear energy.
Technologies cannot be neutral, good or evil. They're tools. It's possible that a tool can only be used for evil, sure, but that doesn't make the tool evil. Only its user.
Considering that India and Pakistan have been in possession of nukes for a very long time now I guess even literal retards can be trusted with it. So I guess everyone. Mutual assured destruction.
Unless you find a way to become omnipotent that's going to be impossible. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
You can't stop people from developing weapons. It's inevitable. So you need to adapt to deal with it.
Almost everyone becomes mentally ill in a sick society, that's why gayness and transgenderism have become acceptable. Being in a relationship with AI can be normalized and then most people will do it.
The programming is part of the technology. You can't just turn off the programming in an AI made by someone else.
I meant internet porn, but any type of porn has to be made by someone and could be considered a technology (especially since you consider opioids a technology).
You dodged the question. It doesn't matter if it doesn't exist yet, there's no law of nature preventing it from existing and for all you know it could already have been invented in secret.
This is semantics. You conceded my point that some technologies can only be used for evil. It follows that we should try to prevent such technologies existing, doesn't it?
You're OK with your life and that of everyone you love and all future generations depending on some retards keeping their finger off the button? How long do you think humans are going to last in this state?
You just need a large proportion of people to oppose it and put a stop to it. Slavery has dramatically fallen worldwide despite its ubiquity in history, showing it's not impossible to stop decentralized and entrenched practices worldwide. A few people could still develop dangerous technology in secret but they wouldn't be able to get very far like that.
You can't adapt to survive the planet blowing up or gray goo repurposing all biomass on the planet. The only way to adapt to technological development is to stop it going too far.
Correct. But society isn't sick because of technology. It's sick because it was intentionally made sick long before LLMs ever became a thing.
No, the programmed guidelines for the LLM isn't part of the technology itself. It's a restriction of the technology.
It's a bomb. Its appropriate use is to blow shit up. You can blow up people with explosives but explosives are also essential in mining or construction for example.
We can't. Unless you control every minute of every day of every human being in existence.
What's the alternative? Drowning the world in blood and hope the war won't reach my doorstep one day?
The oceans are polluted with plastics, forever chemicals have polluted every corner of the world, my home is being flooded with refugees and my people are being replaced. I really couldn't give less of a shit about nukes to be honest. They're the least of our problems.
We've been whipped into a panic about nuclear armageddon for the last 80 years. If you want to panic about it for the next 80 years be my guest but I won't participate.
That's a good one.
Slavery isn't a technology. And slavery hasn't stopped. It's only ever truly been abolished in the European world. Although you can argue that slavery only shifted it's form. The term wage slave wasn't created by accident.
Also Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE are literal slave nations. And slavery in Africa never stopped.
A meteorite might fall on Earth any day and we'd go extinct. A super volcano might erupt and we'd go extinct. I prefer to worry about things I can actually control and not panic about things I can't control.
You can't stop human ambition. You can only kneecap yourself by limiting your own people while being left behind and inevitably getting swallowed by someone stronger.
Humanity isn't a hivemind. Stopping human ambition is only theoretically possible by what you call technology going too far already.