Technological determinism

Technium, amistics, the robo-omega-point etc

December 17, 2018 — February 17, 2025

adaptive
collective knowledge
economics
evolution
game theory
innovation
intellectual property
making things
networks
policy
sociology
spatial
technology
the rather superior sort of city

Suspiciously similar content

Figure 1

Big history with particular reference to technological innovations determining stuff. Marxists have materialist dialectic, energetics folks think the course of history is determined by energy flows, and technological determinists think it’s about the tools we make.

See also singularity, AI without computers.

I used to have a notebook about the Technium (Kelly 2010). But I accidentally deleted it. Then I heard this excellent podcast: Allan Dafoe on why technology is unstoppable & how to shape AI development anyway

1 Purely data driven

Extrapolate a curve and see technological singularities:

2 Incoming

3 References

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Dafoe. 2015. “On Technological Determinism: A Typology, Scope Conditions, and a Mechanism.” Science, Technology, & Human Values.
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Harari. 2018. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.
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———. 2020b. The Coevolution: The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines.
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———. 1970. The myth of the machine: Technics and human development.
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