#SuperApps #Solutionism #SiliconValley: "For some tech firms like Microsoft, super apps may provide an opportunity to break the hold of more established monopolies like Apple or Google. And for consumers, one application with a core function brings together a diverse array of services such as calling a cab, investing money, or even making a quick buck.

But app-based solutions to structural problems are just shining examples of insisting the disease is the cure. Silicon Valley has long exploited existing societal and infrastructural gaps. Ride-hail platforms have savaged public transit and the taxi industry, but the need for drivers in cities without adequate transport options remains. The same goes for platforms offering app-based solutions to housing or financial services: Their popularity is less a testament to their innovation than to how desiccated the nonmarket alternatives were, thanks to older deregulatory campaigns stretching back to the ascent of neoliberal governance in the 1970s. In the end, they perpetuate problems with the systems they claim to hack. The crypto industry preys on nonwhite communities without access to the traditional financial system, and on-demand labor platforms have been hard at work eroding this country’s threadbare labor laws."

https://www.wired.com/story/super-app-musk-x-wechat-regulation/

Technology, ditto. #science #technology #progress #NuclearWeapons #GlobalWarming #missiles #plastics #chemicals #GMOCrops #AI #NuclearEnergy #solutionism

Wenn es nicht so bitter wäre, könnte man einfach darüber lachen.

https://thenib.com/problem-solved/

#solutionism #solutionismus #technology

“In fact, the remarkable performance of ChatGPT-like services is, by design, a refusal to grasp reality at a deeper level, beyond the data’s surface.”

An excellent critique by Evgeny Morozov of #AI “solutionism” (and, by extension, of the whole culture of #solutionism):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opinion/artificial-intelligence-danger.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

"I called this solutionism, but “digital neoliberalism” would be just as fitting. This worldview reframes social problems in light of for-profit technological solutions. As a result, concerns that belong in the public domain are reimagined as entrepreneurial opportunities in the marketplace."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opinion/artificial-intelligence-danger.html

#agi #solutionism #society

#India’s #Tech Obsession May Leave Millions of Workers Without Pay/ via @wallabag
https://www.wired.com/story/india-tech-obsession-millions-workers-without-pay

>The #Modi government is forcing low-paid workers to use a glitchy new digital registration system that fails in places with weak internet.

A splendid and terrible illustration of millions wasted on trechno-#solutionism without any consideration for the users and the negative consequences on the most fragile people in the population.

Apple's new VR headset is a super amazing piece of modern tech. However, it is also a great solution for a missing problem.

Really, what does it solve or improve?

#apple #vr #solutionism

Werden Erfindungen und technischer Fortschritt das Klima noch retten können?

Für jedes Problem gibt es eine Lösung – oder? Nicht nur, aber auch in Sachen Klimaschutz verweisen Medien, Politik und Wissenschaft gern auf technologischen Fortschritt und die Segnungen der Ingenieurkunst. Das mag Optimismus verbreiten – aber wird dies auch den Herausforderungen der Klimakrise gerecht, fragt Christiane @SchulzkiHaddouti @riffreporter #Solutionism

https://www.riffreporter.de/de/umwelt/technik-glaeubigkeit-wissenschaft-fdp-solutionismus-klima-klimaschutz-technische-loesungen

https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-solutionism-hype.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
#bigtech #ai #chagpt #solutionism

#AI #Solutionism #ChatGPT #SiliconValley: "The AI-enabled solutionism emerging from the tech titans promises to repeat a toxic history of self-defined goodness. It is time we break away from this legacy of moral certainty. Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto reads more like satire. It is no wonder that, in 2018, this phrase was quietly retired from the organization’s preface. Clay Tarver, a writer and producer for the uncomfortably funny HBO series “Silicon Valley” recently remarked, “I’ve been told that, at some of the big companies, the PR departments have ordered their employees to stop saying ‘We’re making the world a better place,’ specifically because we have made fun of that phrase so mercilessly.” Sometimes, a Silicon Valley solution only exacerbates the problem."
https://restofworld.org/2021/ai-isnt-going-to-save-us/

#AI #OpenAI #Solutionism #GenerativeAI #LLMs: "Solutionism is a crucial component of how Big Tech sells its visions of innovation to the public and investors. When Facebook became Meta and started advertising its approach to virtual reality, it aired an expensive, inadvertently depressing Super Bowl commercial that conveyed the message that physical reality is broken and the solution to everything that ails us can be found in virtual alternatives. The message sank in, and today we have law enforcement suggesting that the metaverse is “an online solution to the law enforcement recruitment problem” because it will allow potential recruits to have immersive experiences like driving police vehicles and solving cases. At the same time, Meta is making moves that reveal its solutionism as a PR strategy. Although the company was bullish on Horizon Workrooms, a metaverse product that allows teams to collaborate in VR, Mark Zuckerberg has done an about-face on allowing Meta employees to continue to do their jobs remotely. He’s also signaling a shift in company priorities from the metaverse to A.I.

Now solutionism is part of the current artificial intelligence hype cycle. While there’s no doubt that new A.I. products will significantly affect how we work, socialize, and play, we’re also drowning in a sea of hyperbole. So much so that the Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved and warned that the agency is concerned about companies exaggerating what their A.I. products can do. “AI hype is playing out today across many products, from toys to cars to chatbots and a lot of things in between,” the agency writes."

https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-solutionism-hype.html

Ava Labs tritt an, alle Assets dieser Welt auf seiner L1-Blockchain „Avalanche“ zu erfassen. Nimmt dieser #solutionism denn kein Ende?

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/25/avalanche-wants-to-digitize-all-of-the-worlds-assets-on-the-blockchain/

#solutionism
Research pointing towards 100x cost reductions in space-based solar shades, suggesting very thin diffuse sheets of silicon dioxide nanotubes suspended in polymer, instead of reflecting light in the opposite direction, only slightly diverts it, requiring much less mass.
It would make lagrange occulters feasible, though still much more expensive than sulfates, the reduction in side effects seems worth the cost to me.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zero-pressure-space-sunshades-hein/id1529459393?i=1000601498629

@lorenzlm @leitmedium @heinz

Der Clou soll eigentlich nur sein, dass auch der härteste Solutionist nicht davon auszugehen scheint, dass eine technische Lösung durch (vermeintlich) bloßes Funktionieren überzeugt und sich durchsetzt. Stattdessen wird Technik von nicht-materieller Überzeugungs- und Überredungsarbeit flankiert.

#solutionism

#sailing #saveTheClimate #solutionism #technology #capitalismIsDumb

#solutionism #degrowth #enjoy

Good food for thought by Andreas Weber

"on Aliveness and Interdependence"

http://www.bollier.org/blog/andreas-weber-aliveness-and-interdependence #flatness #solutionism #senseMaking #meaning #capitalism

Things that were already painfully obvious 8 years ago:

The internet of things will be an internet of obsolete junk

https://theconversation.com/the-internet-of-things-will-be-an-internet-of-obsolete-junk-36814 #consumerism

#e-waste #environmentalImpact #internetOfThings #iot #raee #sensors #solutionism

We are well into the "Age of Diminishing Technological Returns" by now...

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-age-of-diminishing-technological.html #apps #degrowth #downshifting #peakTechnology #solutionism

what will really happen "After Technology Destroys #Capitalism"?

What they predicted ~10 years ago, or something else?

https://buff.ly/3wXZDvP

#automation #blockChainProtocol #commons #p2p #reputation #sharingEconomy #solutionism #universalBasicIncome