Hacker News with Generative AI: Society

Six unsettling thoughts Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, has about AI (npr.org)
Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, is thinking about artificial intelligence – how it interacts with humans, and how it may reshape democracy. Or replace it.
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Society, Democracy
12 points by bookofjoe 2 days ago | 1 comments
Decline of cash credited for drop in surgery for children swallowing objects (theguardian.com)
Cashless societies may be a sad fact of modern life for those with a nostalgic attachment to the pound in their pocket, but doctors have discovered one unexpected benefit of the decline of coins.
Health, Society, Finance, Children
85 points by geox 4 days ago | 61 comments
Digital Echoes and Unquiet Minds (chrbutler.com)
When the iPhone was first introduced in 2007, the notion of an “everything device” was universally celebrated.
Technology, History, Society
170 points by delaugust 5 days ago | 86 comments
AI will change the world but not in the way you think (thomashunter.name)
The current generation of consumer facing AI tools, known as Large Language Models (LLMs), continue to proliferate through society, used by folks from every stage of life, from office workers to school children.
Artificial Intelligence, Society
90 points by tlhunter 7 days ago | 107 comments
The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything (2011) (npr.org)
The vast majority of the world's books, music, films, television and art, you will never see. It's just numbers.
Culture, Media, Art, Technology, Society
10 points by bumbledraven 7 days ago | 1 comments
Music and the Decline of Civilization (renovatio.zaytuna.edu)
In almost every description of a declining civilization we find the same tropes: an excess of liberty, a confusion of social norms, and the weakening of authority that soon descends into lawlessness.
Music, Culture, Civilization, Society
21 points by walterbell 8 days ago | 39 comments
The Internet Slum: is abandoning the Internet the next big thing? (2004) (fourmilab.ch)
Is it time to start thinking about abandoning the Internet?
Internet, Technology, Society
213 points by kimi 14 days ago | 274 comments
The zeitgeist is changing. a romantic backlash to the tech era looms (theguardian.com)
Cultural upheavals can be a riddle in real time. Trends that might seem obvious in hindsight are poorly understood in the present or not fathomed at all. We live in turbulent times now, at the tail end of a pandemic that killed millions and, for a period, reordered existence as we knew it. It marked, perhaps more than any other crisis in modern times, a new era, the world of the 2010s wrenched away for good.
Culture, Society, Technology, Trends
7 points by lordleft 16 days ago | 2 comments
As AI nurses reshape hospital care, human nurses are pushing back (apnews.com)
Healthcare, Artificial Intelligence, Labor, Technology, Society
29 points by Bostonian 16 days ago | 11 comments
Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion (forethought.org)
AI that can accelerate research could drive a century of technological progress over just a few years. During such a period, new technological or political developments will raise consequential and hard-to-reverse decisions, in rapid succession. We call these developments grand challenges.
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Future, Research, Society
16 points by paulpauper 17 days ago | 4 comments
Fertility on demand (worksinprogress.co)
Many women face a choice between career advancement or motherhood. But emerging fertility technologies could allow women to have it all.
Fertility, Technology, Women's Issues, Society
10 points by ortegaygasset 19 days ago | 0 comments
Ask HN: Is human technology advancing faster than human wisdom sustainable? (ycombinator.com)
I think it is easy to argue human technology has advanced far faster than human wisdom.
Technology, Society, Ethics, Artificial Intelligence
7 points by oatmeal1 20 days ago | 4 comments
Firing the refs doesn't end the game (pluralistic.net)
Firing the refs doesn't end the game: It just means there aren't any rules.
Sports, Society, Rules
7 points by hn_acker 20 days ago | 1 comments
The end of capitalism – or the end of civilisation? (theconversation.com)
Beware of hyperbolic headlines. But in this case, I’m afraid, as Ulrike Herrmann’s very readable book The End of Capitalism makes clear, the choice between capitalism and civilisation really does seem to be either/or – and the end will probably come a lot sooner that we thought.
Economics, Capitalism, Society, Politics
10 points by axiologist 20 days ago | 2 comments
Let's Talk About the American Dream (codinghorror.com)
A few months ago I wrote about what it means to stay gold — to hold on to the best parts of ourselves, our communities, and the American Dream itself. But staying gold isn’t passive. It takes work. It takes action. It takes hard conversations that ask us to confront where we’ve been, where we are, and who we want to be.
American Dream, Society, Personal Growth
34 points by _eigenfoo 27 days ago | 16 comments
The A.I. Monarchy (substack.com)
Artificial Intelligence, Politics, Society
213 points by zuzuleinen 31 days ago | 261 comments
Welcome to the Zero Sum Era. Now How Do We Get Out? (nytimes.com)
Zero-sum thinking has spread like a mind virus, from geopolitics to pop culture.
Economics, Society, Culture, Politics
13 points by uxhacker 31 days ago | 5 comments
Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life? (thepublicdiscourse.com)
For decades, we have been told that the future is digital and that resistance is futile. But what if the future we truly want is one where the analogue coexists alongside the digital, where digital technology is an option and not a mandate?
Technology, Society, Digitalization, Analogue
82 points by StatsAreFun 38 days ago | 108 comments
The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians (wired.com)
I know this is unconventional, but I’m going to start by telling you the ending. Or at least, the ending as it stands today. Most of the people involved in this story wind up either dead, maimed, spending months in a mental hospital, languishing in jail, or gone underground.
True Crime, Crime, Journalism, Society
8 points by valtism 38 days ago | 2 comments
'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised (theguardian.com)
From loyalty cards, to restaurant meal deals or simply parking your car – it is harder and harder to get by without signing up to a multitude of apps
Mobile Technology, Digital Divide, Accessibility, Society, Consumerism
788 points by zeristor 39 days ago | 841 comments
Who wants to work in a factory? (arenamag.com)
For more than half a century, we Americans have distanced ourselves from the making of our everyday surroundings.
Manufacturing, Labor, Economy, Society
32 points by HR01 39 days ago | 64 comments
An Age of Illiteracy (fiddlersgreene.substack.com)
Civilizational decline is anticlimactic. For all our contemporary fascination with collapse, degeneration’s lived experience is humiliatingly ordinary. It’s just a series of broken systems, ruined people, and things falling apart.
Society, Decline, Culture
4 points by paulpauper 40 days ago | 0 comments
Broligarchy does not build civilization (ghost.io)
With the new administration taking over in USA, we will see success, improvements and positive change. We will also experience further polarization and division in society. We used to say with great power comes great responsibility. Now the saying will be “with great power comes greater power”. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Politics, Society, Power, USA
30 points by saevarom 44 days ago | 32 comments
Why bother with privacy when I have nothing to hide? (2023) (hannahonprivacy.substack.com)
Why bother with privacy when I have nothing to hide?
Privacy, Surveillance, Ethics, Society
56 points by mooreds 44 days ago | 60 comments
Ignorance is bliss when you're drowning in information (theregister.com)
I've never seriously accepted the maxim "ignorance is bliss". Now I'm less sure.
Information Overload, Technology, Opinion, Society
9 points by rntn 49 days ago | 0 comments
The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto (postmeritocracy.org)
Meritocracy is a founding principle of the open source movement, and the ideal of meritocracy is perpetuated throughout our field in the way people are recruited, hired, retained, promoted, and valued.
Open Source, Meritocracy, Technology, Society
6 points by airhangerf15 51 days ago | 1 comments
Advertising Is a Cancer on Society (2019) (zlydach.pl)
I frequently say that advertising is a cancer on modern society.
Advertising, Society, Opinions
284 points by hosteur 51 days ago | 271 comments
Forget Psychedelics. Everyone's Microdosing Ozempic Now (hollywoodreporter.com)
On a chilly January evening, Samira Shamoon, a 44-year-old health and beauty publicist, walked into an Italian restaurant to meet friends. They were stunned by the incandescence of her skin. Her cheekbones appeared more defined. After a flurry of questions about which dermatologist or plastic surgeon she had visited, she said, beaming, “I’m microdosing!”
Health, Drugs, Society, Trends
22 points by adrian_mrd 52 days ago | 17 comments
Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines? How to thrive in a ChatGPT world (thebullshitmachines.com)
We were promised hyper-intelligent computer systems that would usher in an era of unparalleled prosperity and innovation.
Generative AI, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Society
930 points by ctbergstrom 52 days ago | 605 comments
AI dialogue analysis confirms movies have grown more violent over past 70 years (phys.org)
Movies often reflect the predominant societal and cultural values at the time they were shot. These values can be expressed in various elements of a film, including the interactions between characters, their communication styles and their characterizing traits.
AI, Movies, Violence, Society, Culture
11 points by pseudolus 54 days ago | 18 comments