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464 pages, Audible Audio
First published October 15, 2015
We stand on the shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits.
There’s a race going on that will determine the fate of humanity.
The race between the growing power of technology and the growing wisdom with which we manage it. The power is growing because our human minds have an amazing ability to understand the world and to convert this understanding into game-changing technology. Technological progress is accelerating for the simple reason that breakthroughs enable other breakthroughs. As technology gets twice as powerful, it can often be used to design and build technology that is twice as powerful in turn, triggering repeated capability doubling.
What about the wisdom of ensuring that our technology is beneficial? We have the technology to thank for all how today is better than the Stone Age, but this is thanks to the technology itself and the wisdom we use it. Our traditional strategy for developing such wisdom has been learning from mistakes: We invented fire, then realized the wisdom of having fire alarms and fire extinguishers. We invented the automobile and then realized the wisdom of driving schools, seat belts, and airbags.
In other words, it was OK for wisdom to sometimes lag in the race because it would catch up when needed. With more powerful technologies such as nuclear weapons, synthetic biology, and future strong artificial intelligence, however, learning from mistakes is not a desirable strategy: we want to develop our wisdom in advance so that we can get things right the first time because that might be the only time we’ll have. In other words, we need to change our approach to tech risk from reactive to proactive. Wisdom needs to progress faster.