New information technologies have often resulted in new societies: the invention of record-keeping with clay tablets made certain forms of trade and taxation possible, which in turn allowed larger social units to emerge. The printing press allowed people to spread information quickly and organize, leading to the overthrow of monarchies and the establishment of democracies. If we follow your thoughts on the contributions of AI to social institutions, what kinds of societies can we imagine emerging?
So little of AI is formulated in terms of empowering the common man to do what he couldn't do before -- even the Internet was first seen as a tool of emancipation and anarchic liberation: think of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Surely AI will give each of us the power to gain greater autonomy, outwit the bureaucracies, self-organize into intelligent communes, overthrow our oppressors, and achieve independence?
I think AI - if properly used - can help us create "pop-up" social institutions with a lot more density and trust than what's possible today. For example (since this is something I know we are both interested in) - setting up distributed thematic research labs where the people are in different parts of the world and the laboratory equipment is also distributed etc. The internet made such remote collaborations possible, but it's still hard, if not impossible, to spin up a functioning institution with the 25 people in the world who are all passionate about the same topic - let's say 19th century stamps issued in the Madras Presidency. I think that's now possible with AI.
New information technologies have often resulted in new societies: the invention of record-keeping with clay tablets made certain forms of trade and taxation possible, which in turn allowed larger social units to emerge. The printing press allowed people to spread information quickly and organize, leading to the overthrow of monarchies and the establishment of democracies. If we follow your thoughts on the contributions of AI to social institutions, what kinds of societies can we imagine emerging?
So little of AI is formulated in terms of empowering the common man to do what he couldn't do before -- even the Internet was first seen as a tool of emancipation and anarchic liberation: think of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Surely AI will give each of us the power to gain greater autonomy, outwit the bureaucracies, self-organize into intelligent communes, overthrow our oppressors, and achieve independence?
I think AI - if properly used - can help us create "pop-up" social institutions with a lot more density and trust than what's possible today. For example (since this is something I know we are both interested in) - setting up distributed thematic research labs where the people are in different parts of the world and the laboratory equipment is also distributed etc. The internet made such remote collaborations possible, but it's still hard, if not impossible, to spin up a functioning institution with the 25 people in the world who are all passionate about the same topic - let's say 19th century stamps issued in the Madras Presidency. I think that's now possible with AI.