You've been wondering where you fit on the Techno-Opto-Pessimism Spectrum. We all have. So Baruch has designed a pretty graphic to help us find our place. Btw, Baruch is back writing again and you can sign up for emails to his latest works on the right at Ultimi Barbarorum.
Where are you on the Techno-Opto-Pessimism Spectrum? Will robots take our jobs (and then kill us)?
By Baruch at Ultimi Barbarorum
Excerpt:
As you can see, all or most of these guys can be put on different bits on what Baruch calls his Techno-opto-pessimism spectrum. Most of the arguments, I think, have been set out by Kurzweil, McAfee and Brynjolfsson, and Robert Gordon. A lot of the later books decide to come out on the spectrum where they feel like, and simply selectively reproduce these arguments to justify themselves. Baruch is going to do you a favour so you can seem knowledgeable at dinner parties, without having to do actual, you know, reading of any this stuff. Here it is, his patented Techno-Opto-Pessimism spectrum! Ta Daaa! Look upon his powerpoint, oh ye mighty, and despair.
p.s. Baruch says he's somewhere in the middle. I am too, maybe slightly left: take our jobs? Yes. Kill us? Not so much. (I'm more worried about diseases, ISIS, and of course earthquakes.)
