[drabiger]

It's sad that a well paid person and probably smart person like Demis Hassabis is so wrong in his view about how the world is.

To quote the article quoting Hassabis, "The reason I say that is that if you look at the challenges that confront society: climate change, sustainability, mass inequality — which is getting worse — diseases, and healthcare, we're not making progress anywhere near fast enough in any of these areas."

Fortunately, that's not true, as is shown in Factfulness: http://a.co/d/cau5vUv

[adrianN]

For climate change we're not even close to making enough progress. Global CO2 emissions are expected to continue rising for the foreseeable future, so we're not even getting the second derivative right. The chances are close to zero that we'll manage to limit warming to two degrees and imho it's likely that we'll set off some feedback loops (melting permafrost, methane clathrates, albedo changes at the poles, etc.) that will lead to catastrophic warming in the next century.

[drabiger]

Agree.

[gepi79]

> we're not making progress anywhere near fast enough in any of these areas.

Unfortunately it is true and I fully agree with this judgement.

We have already so much technology and yet there is still much poverty and misery in every country and NO (elected) government respects even the human rights.

http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/25/ex-un-chief-...

Besides, how many millions or billions of people will die until scientists have solved the aging problem ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6HyNk5Duvk&t=254

[drabiger]

Well, we could go on and both claim our statements are true. OR you just follow the link of my initial post and read a book that simply states facts published by the UN, and you would see for yourself that the rates of poverty, child mortality and mass inequality have become much better in the course of the last 30-50 years.

[gepi79]

The only reason why both of our statements are true is because "fast enough" or "not fast enough" is a personal opinion.

I believe in the benefits of technology.

The reason for current misery is not only lack of knowledge (scientific) and technology (e.g. in psychology and psychiatry) but also lack of knowledge (economic) and bad morality as proven by the kind of societies and elected governments in 2018.

[the_greyd]

That progress was set in motion by decisions we took years ago. I think all of us understand at some level, that we are failing to keep making good decisions. Books like "Better angels of our nature" and "factfulness" try to convince you that world is only going to get better, but I don't think it's obvious at all.

Re: enlightenment values, liberal democracy, trade etc. I believe governments and public institutions played a major role in the past that contributed to our success now.

We have moved from public institutions to private companies now. More capital is being invested now in selling us ads, selling you the next version of iphone etc. The companies with the most capital are tech companies. They are not solving the problem of healthcare, climate change, sustainability, mass inequality or any meaningful thing in any way. People are more excited for VR games. I feel right now, humanity is like a rich spoiled brat.

[a008t]

He is primarily a salesman, is he not?

[tomd]

> 'probably smart', 'primarily a salesman'

"A child prodigy in chess, Hassabis reached master standard at the age of 13"

"graduating in 1997 with a Double First[13] from the University of Cambridge"

"obtain[ed] his PhD in cognitive neuroscience from University College London"

"[his] theoretical account of the episodic memory system [...] was listed in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year in any field by the journal Science"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis

[a008t]

But that does not change the fact that his primary role at the moment is selling his research institute to potential funders.

[slm_HN]

Sure, PhD in cognitive neuroscience is OK, but Demis' most impressive feat is winning the Mind Sport Olympiad a record 5 times.