[mewpmewp2]

> by the way, my home is full of microphones and video cameras which are always on and used to power my digital assistant

Everyone are already walking around with smart phones that are perfectly able to do all of that.

> I'm not. My phone, laptop and computers all run software that I get to install down to the OS (Linux, /e/OS), and I would never install something like the ChatGPT app on my phone.

Fine if you do that.

> What I am talking about is the "attack" being done by corporations into your house. It pains me to hear that people are willing to give so much of their privacy in the name of "convenience" and don't even show any slight concern over the thought of having so much data going to Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and (now) OpenAI.

I personally am not concerned about this, although I understand how people can be. I don't want to go my whole life avoiding things, concerned about what is being done with my data, and then I die. I have long dated option calls really out of money in all those companies (except OpenAI of course), in case one of them gets a massive data advantage and happens to discover singularity from this, so I would benefit from it anyway. Before that happens, they just use it to optimise ads for you, and I prefer optimised ads over random ads. Otherwise I'll do my best to block them, but if they get through, I prefer something I might actually be interested in and that might help me.

I prefer to see inventions and technology. At certain point humans will be outlived by technology anyway, and that's bound to happen. New inventions and tech are what is exciting and why I like living, seeing those things coming together.

[rglullis]

> Everyone are already walking around with smart phones that are perfectly able to do all of that.

Being able to do it is not the same as actually doing it.

The rest of your argument, sorry but I can not respond without feeling angry. It just feels like the rationalizations of a selfish, too-clever-by-half neomaniac.

[mewpmewp2]

> Being able to do it is not the same as actually doing it.

You could have smart devices similarly only react or go to active mode when you press a button on your watch etc.

> The rest of your argument, sorry but I can not respond without feeling angry. It just feels like the rationalizations of a selfish, too-clever-by-half neomaniac.

Okay, I agree that your words can describe me well, but what do you think the end game for humans or tech is? Why do we exist here? Are we just here to reproduce over and over again with no change? And if there's always change, aren't you curious what will happen in the future?

[rglullis]

Why did you go from one extreme (all new things are super exciting and should be desirable by anyone) to another (we are here to reproduce over and over again with no change) like this is a binary option?

"Tech" is a means, not an end. What problems are we solving with this tech, and what problems are we creating with the introduction of new technology? These are the only questions that I have when talking about technology, and I really don't see much sense in trying to turn into an existential question.

> aren't you curious what will happen in the future?

Not really, no. When facing a moral dilemma, I look to the past to see what mistakes can be avoided. I try to live in the present and take things as they are. I might look at the "current instant" to see where things are headed and if there are new opportunities being presented, but "the future" is something so out of reach and so out of control that I really give as little thought as possible.

[mewpmewp2]

What would you then say that should be the goal for humans as a collective?

[rglullis]

I don't think there should be one. I also think that everyone that has come up with their idea is misguided, and all that tried to implemented one was/is a authoritarian psychopath who should be stripped of any power as soon as their nature got revealed.

[mewpmewp2]

So then we float aimlessly, pointlessly and meaninglessly towards nothingness?

[arter4]

Not OP but, regardless of why we exist here, change is not always good.

Change simply means that something becomes something else. It isn't inherently good.

For example, now I walk with both legs, but if a car hits me, I might stay on a wheelchair for some time, which is change, but not a welcome one. Before you say "this is a strawman argument", think about technologies like "cloud seeding", which are supposed to enforce specific weather conditions by spraying certain substances in the air (not clear on the details). This sounds like a cool idea, but is it, when some studies suggest this is dangerous for the environment? Shouldn't we (as humans) think about the effects before embracing change?

So, to me, change can be good or bad (or, often, a combination). If the goal of human life was change, it should probably be "change for good". Which is complicated - what is good and what is bad? Who gets to decide? Can I know in advance? What if something is eventually to be bad, can we get back? But that's how life is, no matter the end goal: complicated.

[mewpmewp2]

I would think the main goal of humans should be to understand what is behind all that. Why do we exist. It seems to me the best way to do that is to develop tech, and I would hope quick as otherwise I personally will obviously die before finding out.

What do you think the goal is?

I just think that at some point we will find out anyway and why not quicker then? Why let 5 or 10 more generations of humans go on if at some point we might reach an answer or an endpoint of some sort.

[rglullis]

> I just think that at some point we will find out anyway and why not quicker then?

Because you and the corporations you support are making the lives of people worse now, and you are trading their wellbeing for your very minimal, personal comfort, and rationalizing it away with Pascal Wager-style of technocracy where "tech" could save you from dying.

[mewpmewp2]

Which people's lives are they making worse?