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The Canaries in the Digital Coal Mine
As I’ve written before, the invisible hand of culture has begun to push back on social media in society and we are increasingly questioning the role of Artificial Intelligence. Some are under the spell of the sirens of the technology world; Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Nick Bostrom, Marc Andreeson to name a few. The captains of industry are happily steering their ships towards their siren songs.
Yet there are voices in the wild, calling out. They are being heard. The sirens do not like them, for they fear their sweet songs will be maligned. That we may choose a path other than the one they desire.
These voices are the canaries in the coal mine. The sirens say they are anti-technology, that they will send us back in time, deny humanity the riches and gilded promises of Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, robots.
This is untrue. These canaries aren’t at all opposed to technology. Quite the opposite. It’s just that they are providing a voice of reason and understand human nature. They are the voices that see how we can better steward technologies and how we can not just survive, but thrive in both the digital and physical worlds.
Here is my list of these canaries, these brilliant minds who enjoy technologies, but love humanity the most.
