Member-only story
Why AI Won’t Save the World
When tech moguls predict utopia, you have every right to be skeptical. Still, all is not lost.
“Everything that’s bad for you catches on too quickly in America, because that’s the easiest thing to get people to invest in, the pursuits that are easy and destructive, the ones that bring out the least positive aspects of people.”
— Gil Scott-Heron
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”
— Isaac Asimov
I remember where I was when I first logged onto the internet. I was just outside Boston, at my Uncle’s house, in his home office that doubled as a guest bedroom. It was December 18, 1993. I logged into America Online, waited five minutes, and heard “Welcome!” Then, I clicked on a menu header named “Sports”, waited ten more minutes for the scores to load, and got bumped off when someone picked up the phone.
That’s how it began; it’d be another couple of years before the internet came ‘round to my house. It was marginally more useful by then. I used Netscape Navigator to cheat on my homework, or visit things called websites and…
