The revenge of the humanists


A couple of years ago, when the AI debate was raging only in certain circles and was not yet global, I read a statement that made me think a lot. I don't remember where I found it, but I don't want to present it as if it were my own anyway.
It went something like this: "The only profession that will remain untouched by the current technological revolution is that of the ethics expert." Yes, you read that right, ethics expert, I am talking precisely about moral philosophers.
In fact, the only thing we will need to continue providing to AI agents, without them sorting it out themselves, will be the moral perimeter within which they must operate: the tables of commandments, a manifesto, the rulebook. They can do the rest on their own.
When I was a boy, people used to say: "Go study engineering, medicine, economics, law, at least physics or political science, so at least you'll find a job. What the hell are you studying philosophy for? Do you want to end up unemployed giving lectures to drunks in a tavern?"
And here we are. The lecturer for drunks, the one who out of passion chose the "losing" faculty, will be the new super executive with a million-dollar severance package. And we smart alecks who got the "right" degrees will have to hope that universal income isn't just a meager handout.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Comments

Post a Comment

Most popular shreds (so to speak)

On the black hill - Bruce Chatwin

Image
I’ve had Bruce Chatwin on my author list for a long time. I thought he was mainly a travel writer: I remember some friends of mine referring to “In Patagonia” and “What am I doing here” as great travel literature. When I found “On the black hill” on the shelves of one of my favorite used book stores I realized that he wrote fiction as well.
Read the rest of this post »
 

AirAsia: not so cool anymore

Image
Having been a rather regular customer of AirAsia - since the beginning, when they were still using old planes and few people trusted them (“They are always late...they'll lose your luggage.” was the typical refrain people were singing in Malaysia) - I can say that their online booking procedure was fast, simple, transparent and fair, their prices among the cheapest and their brand one of the coolest. Well...not anymore. Going through just a few screens, filling a limited number of fields and clicking some buttons one could choose date, destination, number of passengers, one way or return, could select their favorite flight among the available options, enter their personal data, the credit card ones and that was it. As I said: fast, simple, transparent and fair. No free meal and no seat allocation, true, but their prices were dirt cheap, really unbeatable on some routes. This took by surprise the traditional carriers that lost large shares of the market while AirAsia, from a ...
Read the rest of this post »
 

Passage-brothels in Brickfields - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Image
Photo of a passage-brothel, taken hurriedly and on the sly Brickfields is a neighborhood close to Kuala Lumpur central station (KL Sentral, yes, with "S"). Unlike other areas of the center it has remained rather untouched by the waves of modernity that altered large parts of the city, even though the imposing lines of skyscrapers and infrastructures besiege it assiduously. The district is home to a picturesque Little India, budget hotels, little multi-ethnic restaurants, street stalls and places of worship, including numerous Christian churches.  The most bizarre joints, though, are a series of long and narrow passages facing the sidewalks. The entrance half-hidden by a rag used as a curtain, a pale pink light coming out of the clear sides, from which it is possible to peep at a sequence of run-down doors, each one watched over by a scantily-clad lady leaning on a doorpost or seated on a plastic stool. A pimp with the typical attitude of a human-spider (I was about to wr...
Read the rest of this post »