Existential Hope Drop #21: Jason Crawford, Roots of Progress
An Ever-Evolving Journey
In this Hope Drop, we welcome Jason Crawford, founder of The Roots of Progress, where he writes and speaks about the history of technology and the philosophy of progress. Previously, he spent 18 years as a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder.
This month, join us as Jason discusses a positive future characterized by continuous, incremental development: a protopia. He positions AI as pivotal in transforming society, democratizing services, and bridging societal divides.
Explore his vision of the future in this podcast episode and through an AI artwork inspired by his hopeful vision.
Jason's Recommended Resources
Resources on Progress Studies – Roots of Progress (Meta Link)
How to Do Great Work – Paul Graham, 2023
Why AI Will Save the World – Marc Andreessen, 2023
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress – Steven Pinker, 2018
Progress: An Ever-Evolving Journey
Jason envisages a future marked by dynamic, continuous progress, encapsulated in the concept of protopia. This vision diverges from a traditional notion of a utopia, and instead embraces a reality of constant, incremental improvement. In Jason's view, progress is a journey, not a destination. It's a series of small, significant steps that, over time, lead to profound transformations in our world.
Central to Jason's perspective is the transformative potential of AI, paralleling historical technological leaps like the steam engine and personal computing. He views AI as a catalyst for a new era in human history, one that could redefine societal structures by making high-quality services accessible to a broader demographic. This democratization of resources, akin to services becoming as affordable as a Netflix subscription, could bridge societal gaps. However, Jason emphasizes that this protopian future requires collective agency, responsibility, and a balanced understanding of our role in shaping it. He believes that progress accelerates over time, with each innovation building upon the last, thus speeding up future advancements.
About the artist
Philipp Lenssen created this art piece with the help of generative AI. Philipp is from Germany and has been exploring technology and art for all his life. He developed sandbox universes Manyland and wrote a technology blog for 7 years. He's currently working on new daily pictures at Instagram.com/PhilippLenssen
Related Xhope Library Recommendations:
External Metatools for Progress
The Progress Dashboard - Tony Morley. A visual overview of all things progress studies.
ProgressForum – A place for long-form discussion of progress studies and the philosophy of progress. Founded by Jason Crawford
Re.Silience – Blog. On resilience and systems-thinking.
An Era of Stagnation and Universal Institutional Failure – Peter Thiel, Eric Weinstein. On why and how innovation and scientific progress are declining.
What Intellectual Progress Did I Make in the 2010s - Scott Alexander. Reviews his shift in thinking positively to negatively about progress, including a host of references.
New Science - A 501c3 research nonprofit with the mission to facilitate scientific breakthroughs by empowering the next generation of scientists and building the 21st-century institutions of basic science. Founded by Alexey Guzey who blogs on metascience, biology, and philanthropy with Twitter Digest.
NEWS FROM THE XHOPE ECOSYSTEM
Announcing the 2024 Worldbuilding Course – Existential Hope
In this virtual and interactive course, we engage with the most pressing global challenges of our age—climate change, the risks of AI, and the complex ethical questions arising in the wake of new technologies. Our aim is to sharpen participants’ awareness and equip them to apply their skills to these significant and urgent issues.
In this course, you'll craft detailed and sophisticated visions of the world in 2045, with a special focus on integrating AI into our worldbuilds. We will explore how AI, along with other emerging technologies and sciences, will shape our future. This includes looking into the economic frameworks, institutions, and societal values that will support them. You'll gain proficiency in critical and strategic thinking methodologies such as red teaming and forecasting.
Dates & time: Starting February 14, 2024, 6 pm UTC
Location: Remote, across Zoom
Please see our website for a detailed curriculum, other resources, some of our mentors for this course, and to apply.
Applications open for the 2024 Existential Hope AI Hackathon – Foresight Insitute
This two-day hackathon explores near-term Transformative AI scenarios to identify and evaluate existing and possible future institutions or coordination architectures for the safe and beneficial development of transformative AI technologies. We invite leading researchers, funders, and builders in AI, social sciences, economics, mechanism design, game theory, systems thinking, and other relevant areas to prototype new institutions and coordination mechanisms for flourishing AI futures.
Dates: February 5 - 6
Location: The Institute, Salesforce Tower, San Francisco
At the end of the hackathon, the prototypes will be unveiled, and a Development Grant winner will be announced, which includes an opportunity for further development and implementation of their idea.
Please see our website for more information on the goals and format of the hackathon, the agenda, and some of our judges, mentors, and participants of this course: https://foresight.org/2024-xhope-hackathon/
2023 Updates in Expanding our Moral Circle
– Sentience Institute
ChatGPT was launched just over a year ago, to the surprise of many in the field, and the resulting global spotlight has illustrated how important it is to understand human-AI interaction. Sentience Institute's priority continues to be researching the rise of digital minds: AIs that have or are perceived as having mental faculties, such as reasoning, agency, experience, and sentience. They hoped to answer questions such as: What will be the next ‘ChatGPT moment’ in which humanity’s relationship with AI rapidly changes? How can humans and AIs interact in ways that are beneficial rather than destructive?
Explore further:
The Artificial Intelligence, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) survey found that Americans expressed significantly more moral concern for AI in 2023 than in 2021 before ChatGPT.
They supported a paper in AI and Ethics on “What would qualify an artificial intelligence for moral standing?” – A. Ladak.
Learn more about our work at existentialhope.com.