I’m not a great fan of articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – although I’ve dipped into Nexus – a brief history of networks from the stone age to AI by Yuval Harari (2024), The Coming Wave – technology, power and the 21st Century’s greatest dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman (2023) and The Machine Age by Robert Skidelsky (2023)
All of these books are clearly written and give a good assessment of the pros and cons of AI. A much more difficult book to assess is The Great Transformation – history for a techno-human future by Judith Bessant (2018) whose conclusion includes this excerpt -
Co-evolutionary theorists like Merlin Donald and Michael Corballis developed a sophisticated theory of the mind, consciousness and evolution that pays attention to historical and evolutionary change over very long periods of time and offers a relational or ecological approach to understanding the mind, body, consciousness, and culture which includes technology.
As Karl Jaspers (1953) observed, the Axial Age (800–200 bce) was a period of dramatic intellectual, mathematical, religious, and philosophical development that occurred simultaneously in China, India, the Middle East, and Greece. Its protagonists included Confucius, Buddha, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle. It was a pivotal time in human cognitive and intellectual development signified by the birth of comprehensive systems of philosophy, theology, and science. It was also a time marked by an exploration of ethical ideas (e.g. justice, kindness, compassion, and piety), which for many became central to the idea of a good life and spirituality.
For Donald, the Axial Age was also a key period in a larger evolutionary history of human cognitive and cultural development - it signalled the advent of a new human consciousness, a ‘theoretical stage’ of human thinking. This account of the Axial Age provides a base for a key argument in this book, namely, that we are now experiencing distinct changes in human consciousness and ways of representing reality that are as significant as the changes in consciousness that defined the original Axial Age. The new techno-Axial Age we are now entering is revising long-established relations between human consciousness, that is, the ways we represent reality, human action, and work.
The changes documented in this book will have major implications for every human now alive, because they will affect all aspects of our experience and existence. They raise ethico-political questions in which we all have a direct interest in answering. Doing so requires open debate in the public sphere and is too important to be left to experts and elites.
All this indicates the importance of thinking about the arrangements, policies, education, and ethical frames we want and need to develop if we are all to enjoy the benefits of new and emerging technology. The governing ideas and representations of the late-modern capitalist order, like those of pre-Axial societies, are failing to provide what is needed to give meaning and to secure our political cultures as they seemingly did once.
The previous chapter identified a number of design principles that might help guide our thinking and deliberating about a new social imaginary. The aim of that exercise was not to prescribe a doctrine or plan, but to identify particular ideas that will help in deliberations about possible paths and the preliminary steps we might take along them. To do this I drew on a number of writers to argue that priority be given to promoting deep freedom and diversity (plurality), while recognizing that the conditions in which we now live require a new social imaginary. I concluded with an argument about the role educational practices can play in enabling this to happen.
We need now as never before intelligent, ethically sensitive governance. It is something that can be achieved by recognizing everyone’s capacity to imagine and create change.
READING LIST ON TECHNOLOGY – starting with the most recent Nexus – a brief history of networks from the stone age to AI Yuval Harari (2024) The Coming Wave – technology, power and the 21st Century’s greatest dilemma Mustafa Suleyman (2023) The Machine Age Robert Skidelsky (2023) Impromptu – amplifying our humanity through AI by AI and Reid Hoffman (2023) The Age of AI; and our human future H Kissinger, E Scmidt and D Huttenlocher (2021) “Humanity is at a Precipice” (Pew Institute 2019) Future Politics – living together in a world transformed by Tech by Jamie Susskind (2018) The Great Transformation – history for a techno-human future Judith Bessant (2018) “Artificial Intelligence and the future of Humans” (Pew Institute 2018) Utopia is Creepy ; Nicholas Carr (2016) The Internet is not the Answer ; Andrew Keen (2015) The Second Machine Age – work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies ; Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014 From Guttenberg to Zuckenberg – what you really need to know about the Internet ; John Naughton (2013) To Save everything click here – the folly of technological solutionism; Efgeni Morozov (2013) The Shallows - what the internet is doing to our brain Nicholas Carr (2010) Technology Matters – questions to live with David Nye (2010) Looks exactly what I've been looking for The End of Ethics in a Technological Society LE Schmidt ((2006) Technopoly - the surrender of culture to technology ' Neil Postman (1992) The Technological Bluff Jacques Ellul (1989) The whale and the reactor –a search for limits in the age of high technology Langdon Winner (1986) The Impact of Science james burke, isaac asimov (nasa 1985) The Technological System Jacques Ellul (1980) Between two ages – america's role in the technetronic era Zbigniew Brzezinski (1980) The Republic of Technology Daniel Boorstin (1978) The Revolution of Hope - toward a humanized technology by Eric Fromm (1968) The Technological Society Jacques Ellul (1964) Previous posts on the issue https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2024/09/can-we-ever-keep-up-with-technological.html https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/08/perhaps-we-need-to-be-more-cautious-in.html https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/07/have-we-lost-our-collective-intelligence.html
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