zlacker

>>JimDab+(OP)
I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever lies ahead without any concern whatsoever, and learn it the hard way.

It’s a bit tragic that Ilya and company achieved the exact opposite of what they intended apparently, by driving those they attempted to slow down into the arms of people with more money and less morals. Well.

>>9dev+w9
You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think.

I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.

>>imgabe+fb
The climate crisis has proven pretty thoroughly that companies will choose short term profit over humanity’s long term success every time. Public companies are literally forced to do so.

>>bspamm+Sb
Nobody knows “humanity’s long term interest” with any certainty. Consider that fossil fuels allowed humanity to make massive technological advancements in a relatively short time. Yes, it caused climate change, but perhaps those same technological advancements allow us to fix or adapt to that. Then, in 500 years, another disaster like an asteroid or a solar flare or the Earth’s magnetic poles reversing or whatever happens, and without the boost from fossil fuels we would have been too technologically behind to be able to survive it. What was in humanity’s long term interest then?

I’m not saying that’s definitely the case, but moving slowly when you live in a universe that might hurl a giant rock at you any minute doesn’t seem like a great idea.