techno-utopianism Archives - Page 2 of 2

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Bookshelf

Luddites have been getting a bad rap for 200 years. Turns out, they were right

19th May 2017

From Quartz.com: The Luddites were the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton mills, which they believed was threatening their jobs. As machine learning and robotics consume manufacturing and white-collar jobs alike, New York Times journalist Clive Thompson revisits the Luddite’s history to see what the 200-year-old workers’ rebellion can teach us….

Digests/Specials

Here come the robots – And they’re going to take our jobs

28th April 2017

Michael Snyder writes: What in the world are we going to do with billions of human workers around the globe that are no longer needed when technology takes virtually all of our jobs? Some have suggested that society will evolve into a socialist utopia; others see a dystopian future with greater inequality than ever before….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Earth’s ‘technosphere’ now weighs 30 trillion tons, research finds

1st April 2017

CBC News reports: A new report has calculated the total mass of all manmade things-from buildings to cars and computers- to be an astounding 30 trillion tons, seven times more than the total amount of living matter on Earth. It shows the sheer magnitude of the human impact on our planet, which is still growing….

Bookshelf

Kevin Kelly on the 12 technological forces that will shape our future

15th September 2016

We will soon have artificial intelligence that can accomplish professional human tasks. Our lives will be totally 100% tracked by ourselves and others. Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends already in motion, and are impossible to halt without halting civilization, says Internet pioneer Kevin Kelly….

Transhumanity.net

Economy

‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’: What it means and how to respond

26th April 2016

Klaus Schwab writes: A technological revolution is fundamentally altering the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, its unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but the response to it must involve all stakeholders of the global polity….

Mashable.com

Education/Awareness

Everything you know about Artificial Intelligence is wrong

21st April 2016

George Dvorsky writes: Last year, SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk warned that Artificial Intelligence could “take over the world”. The day when machines become smarter than humans has never appeared closer— yet we seem no closer in grasping the implications of this epochal event. Indeed, we are clinging to some serious—and even dangerous—misconceptions about artificial intelligence….

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: Shrinking the Technosphere by Dmitry Orlov

18th March 2016

My hypothesis—let’s call it the Technospheratu hypothesis—is that the technosphere, having risen up on top of and in opposition to Gaia and the biosphere, possesses a certain primitive emergent intelligence that allows it to grow in complexity and power and to dominate the biosphere to an ever-greater extent. Unlike Gaia, it is a parasite upon the biosphere….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Teach-In: Techno-Utopianism & The Fate of the Earth

6th January 2015

Sample a selection of audio & video recordings from the ‘teach-in’ on Techno-Utopianism & The Fate of the Earth: Why Technology Will Not Save the World, held on October 25-26 in New York. More than 45 leading scholars, authors & activists participated in this event, including such well-known names as Jerry Mander, Wes Jackson, Richard Heinberg John Michael…