[nologic01]

AI agents would just cause another layer of indirection (who funds, designs and builds them?, who runs them?, who understands their black box innards? who is empowered to act on their output etc.)

The depressing truth is that we already have more than enough information technology to steer society towards "a better place" if we wanted to. The same exact collections of sensors, chips, devices, cables, OS's, algorithms, databases, apps etc can be deployed in countless other configurations to establish ground truth, educate and inform, empower and enrich. Make us wiser rather than dumber.

Why is it not happening? The actual "software" run by society is both far more primitive and far more sticky than what idealistic techies give it credit for. A positive breakthrough after all the negative steps may yet come. History has not stopped. It may have accelerated as of late. But its an unpredictable and convoluted process.