Silicon Valley is the master of reinvention and contradiction
biology. These are making amazing things possible, including solving the grand challenges of humanity.
We may soon have the ability to generate unlimited, clean, and almost free energy; educate billions through AI and virtual reality; cure or prevent all disease; and grow more than enough food to feed the planet. We really can create the utopian future of Star Trek—300 years earlier than envisioned on TV.
We also have the ability to unleash new horrors: killer robots, runaway AI, engineered viruses. Technologies such as social media, which were supposed to bring the world together and uplift humanity, are instead being used to divide and polarise. The gap between the haves and the havenots is widening. Soon, AI and robots will eliminate hundreds of millions of jobs and leave the people who have lost them in despair.
Silicon Valley needs to wake up to the dark side of its inventions and take responsibility for their impacts. The problems won’t solve themselves; policy makers and academics don’t understand enough to take the lead. The creators of the technologies must lead the discussions on ethics, regulations, and controls.we need to come together and find ways of using advancing technologies to uplift humanity rather than destroy it. If we in Silicon Valley don’t do it, who will?
Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University at Silicon Valley. His forthcoming book, Your Happiness Was Hacked, explains how you how you can live a more balanced technology life The views expressed are personal