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NanditoPapa t1_j9d3dwf wrote

Reply to comment by BigZaddyZ3 in Relevant Dune Quote by johnnyjfrank

Maybe, but prophecy tends to be true in hindsight. Literally millions of books/shows/movies have created versions of history past and future and been absolutely wrong...so pointing out the handful that got it right by luck (or pointing out an obvious trend) isn't really useful to gauge progress. Again, negative visions of the future are compelling so there is a dystopia bias in literature.

I'm an optimist, so I'm hoping for the best when the Singularity hits.

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BigZaddyZ3 t1_j9d4de6 wrote

Fair points. But biased or not, we can’t say which ones got it right and which didn’t yet (at least for most of them). So you can’t totally rule the Dune scenario out yet right?

And I get your point about the dystopian bias, but you can’t just gloss over things with your own optimism-bias as well. There have been actual dystopian periods in human history (such as the holocaust or mass slavery for example.) There’s no guarantee that we’ve seen the last one. In reality, things could go either way is all I’m saying.

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NanditoPapa t1_j9d5dwh wrote

Wellllll...if I'm going to have a bias, I'll choose the happy one! As for dystopian periods, it's likely we're living at the start of one now. My hope is that AI, even if it doesn't result in Singularity, will at least give some people a few tools to help create a better future. Even if that better future isn't on a grand scale. Less like Dune and more like the Foundation Series.

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