[tritosomal]

Did he "shame" people, or write an article about the vapidity of common computer use?

At this point people who remain willfully clueless will suffer serious disadvantages, as computers start to make decisions for them, before they decide for themselves.

We pretend that machine learning has only good intentions and is pure of heart. It may seem like that now, but it won't last forever. Not every artificial learning system will play nice.

[tps5]

Explain to me how this line of reasoning doesn't apply to your car. Or flying in an airplane. Or doing your taxes. Or a million other things.

By living in a "modern society," we're trusting in so many things that we do not thoroughly understand. In some way, this is the principle that makes human "progress" possible. If every individual had to be competent in a given area in order to benefit from/take part in that area then things would move much more slowly.

Of course there are clear disadvantages to taking part in activities that we do not fully understand. We will make sub-optimal decisions because of our ignorance. But in sum, this isn't a problem. In sum, we gain a lot by organizing things this way.

Ignorance isn't good. It isn't ideal. But it's a necessary feature of human societies, and articles like this just come off as nasty and mean spirited.

[tritosomal]

I think "this time it's different" for reasons that aren't clear yet, but for technical people, has been an ominous fear for some decades.

It comes to this: Computer Systems aren't simply inert turing machines we can pull the plug on anymore. We are letting them off the leash and they are moving on their own out in the world, and they are making decisions to interact as peers or better within our social structures.

The car analogy [0] doesn't work anymore because cars are starting to drive themselves.

If you put this into an ecological premise, consider that we've been at the top of the food chain, above all other animals, and we have dominated the biosphere for a million or more years.

Now we are introducing machines as peers and they may soon dominate us, if we're not careful.

Look at the examples in the article, and consider that malfunctioning wi-fi might illustrate how poorly equipped most people are, to confront machines that don't act in their best interests.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_analogy

[ghaff]

Yeah. You can argue about the relative importance of different skills and they'll vary by situation anyway. Being a decent handyman probably matters less if you rent a city apartment than if you own a fixer-upper house in the woods. Similarly there are situations where you really should be competent at dealing with car problems. If you putter around the city doesn't matter so much.

[SomeStupidPoint]

It's not even true now.

Facebook has psychologists on staff seeking to manipulate your emotions for Facebook's benefit using ML and other tech.