I will start by my answer:
I am scared of the future as hell:
- Big companies seem to win, at least that is what it seems to me right now.
- Humans are becoming less social in a trend that is accelerating.
- There is no one, as far as I know, that is working on a set of rigid AI regulations that will ensure that it limits or control its harms and capabilities.
- People around the world are losing their freedoms gradually with almost no way to get them back.
- Everything around me seems to get uglier, from wars to hunger and it does not seem to be improving anytime soon.
What do you people think?
IMO your fears are justified but if you look at it in a big picture way, the world is getting better for most people every generation.
Sure we have lots of fucking stupid shit to deal with right now but its not like past generations didn’t have something similar.
I think what is happening right now is that the post WWII generation, that had it all in so many ways, are coming to grips with the fact that they are going to be dead soon. So you have these world leaders like Putin trying to reclaim the past with one foot in the grave.
Big companies always win, its just reality. But they also always become so big they fall apart on their own. Just look at the first companies, nobody in their day would have believed they would have died. The West Indian Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, even fucking KODAK!
Humans being less social is nothing new either. We just all connected for the first time really. Once that wore off we are going back to a normal, it will probably be an up and down for a while but we are living in a new age of connection, not everyone is really interested in that and many of us are slowly finding the right place and right time to interact with other people.
AI is a cruel joke. Automated and prediction are cool and shit but it will also move where the money and interests are. I don’t really care about it and I think it will be background noise in 10 years, with most people laughing about what we though it could do vs what it does.
Learn some more history, especially your own. We are nothing like the civilization of a hundred years ago. Just look at what the world was like right before WWI. Or go 50 years before that and look at what the US was like right before the Civil War.
your last point is hard to disagree with but as you get older you will probably come to understand that it is just the feeling of being young and finally understanding more of what the world actually is like.
Stay true to yourself. Look at the little things and remember that you don’t have to follow the trends to be happy. Happiness is difficult to achieve and is a fight to keep.
Remember to take time to deflate and consider what you have and what you want. Don’t let the things you cannot control overwhelm you. This last part is a constant battle for me personally.