Oh god. As much as I respected 'cstross, the kind of outlook culminating in this essay starts to read to me as "I'm gonna shit on scientific and technological progress, because I can't have a career as a sci-fi writer if the -fi parts become real too fast".
I get the idea that some ideas are better not realized. I get one may not like people, or business models. But shitting on SpaceX and NuSpace in general, or most recently, on LLMs? That's plain ridiculous. Reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote about things invented after one's 35.
Such a sad, depressing outlook in times where we need to look forward, rekindle hope, have some dreams. And I don't mean we should ignore current problems - just that it's hard to solve anything when people have no hope and succumb to crabs-in-bucket mentality. And assigning blame to random convenient targets, particularly any one that dare to present a positive outlook (justified or not) is definitely not helping solve anything. It's just reinforcing the fucking depressing mess of a zeitgeist we have today.
I don't think those people are getting targeted for "presenting a positive outlook," and the dire outlook is not (solely) because of commentators' pessimism.
Both pessimists and optimists need a bit more of a clear-eyed view of the problems we have in front of us (many created by technology) and the solutions we have available (many of them... also technology).
I don't understand this characterization. He cites a wealth of the kind of history that only a seasoned and successful fiction author could have deep knowledge of. I may end up rereading it so I can follow the thread better. It's fascinating all because of that, but you want to skip to the end and just criticize the mindset because you didn't like the conclusion.
I get it, tech geeks want to believe in tech geekdom. But this is an unexamined religion, the priesthood of which is right here to peel back the curtains and show how it's all smoke and mirrors, and you just want to crucify the non-believer. Elon Musk et al are not the writers of the myths, and rockets and LLMs are not the communion wafers. But you seem to want to treat them as such.
Meanwhile, Stross is literally in the smoke-and-mirror business. He feels threatened, I get that. As an author, LLMs must look like an unpiloted bulldozer heading straight for his house. That's OK; he'll end up in a better neighborhood, just like the rest of us.
This particular brand of billionaire really believes in the power of technology and science to save the world, enough to make these kinds of moonshots. That belief didn't come from nowhere. It came from reading a particular kind of science fiction from a particular era. Stross points this all out.
Without the fiction giving them these ideas, they would be going about their business much much differently. They'd be doing it like other, ordinary American business. The kind that actually changes the world. Shipping, commerce, unS3XY enterprise. That's what made the modern world.
The fantasy that individuals affect history and not just culture is precisely the smoke and mirrors. Information technology makes service economies viable. That's the only contribution that could even remotely be tied to improving the global order. And it wasn't done by techbro enthusiasts, Apple and Microsoft enjoy the glory, but the real heroes are the academics that did the real research.
Without the fiction giving them these ideas, they would be going about their business much much differently. They'd be doing it like other, ordinary American business. The kind that actually changes the world. Shipping, commerce, unS3XY enterprise. That's what made the modern world.
Been reading a bit about Henry Ford lately. I wonder what sci-fi novels he read as a kid. If you think Musk is an asshole...
At any rate, you're making the same mistake Stross does. Human will to power came first, then the sci-fi, then the reality. For better or worse, the sci-fi is optional. Fiction writers don't build the roads, they just paint the signs.
Trust me if the current robber barons thought they could get away with acting like the old robber barons, they most certainly would. Society changed and made it much more difficult for single persons to amass so much power. It will be the same with the new batch. In another decade, this tech cult will be a distant memory.
> I'm gonna shit on scientific and technological progress, because I can't have a career as a sci-fi writer if the -fi parts become real too fast
This is not a fair characterization: cstross wrote several novels about singularities or set in post-singularity universes decades ago - before the current LLM hype. I suspect he has thought more about a/the singularity than those he is criticizing in TFA. He even wrote blog posts about why he doesn't write singularity-related stories anymore (six[1] years before Transformers, and the "Attention is All You Need" paper). Those timelines do not match your interpretation of him being salty about tech moving too fast.
You dismissal sounds a little shallow: there's more to sci-fi than AI, and he doesn't just write sci-fi - his Merchant Princess and Laundry Files books are fantastic.
He's also very specifically said that he would like the world to slow down so he can finish stories before they're obsoleted by reality. This is why Halting State got one sequel rather than two: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...
> He's also very specifically said that he would like the world to slow down so he can finish stories before they're obsoleted by reality
My read is that he says it with tongue very much in cheek. So it's not that his stories are obsoleted but overtaken by reality, making the plot appear to be inspired by recent events - no author wants to be seen as unimaginative. Also, it has happened to him multiple times - he had to scuttle another go at a Halting State sequel scheduled for 2022 which pivoted around a (then fictional) global pandemic[1]
I agree. I find the tone so tiresome, partially because it is mean and simplistic. I don't feel like he's going deep or considering things intelligently. He's reached his conclusions and is preaching a dogma/vibe now.
I did not mean that. 'cstross is smart, writes very well and remains relevant. But I strongly disagree with the outlook of this essay, and the overall vibe I've been getting from his blog in the past couple years; I also find it depressing that it seems to be increasingly representative of the "tech industry counter-culture", for lack of a better name.
It doesn’t feel like he’s shitting on SpaceX. His point is still valid, however, in that we should not divert resources from, say, COVID vaccines for everyone to immortality for the über-rich.
We saw how social networks were used to destabilise democracies we took as invulnerable to such meddling. We saw how placing the accumulation of capital over all things including the welfare of our species can lead to dangerous priorities.
I get the idea that some ideas are better not realized. I get one may not like people, or business models. But shitting on SpaceX and NuSpace in general, or most recently, on LLMs? That's plain ridiculous. Reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote about things invented after one's 35.
Such a sad, depressing outlook in times where we need to look forward, rekindle hope, have some dreams. And I don't mean we should ignore current problems - just that it's hard to solve anything when people have no hope and succumb to crabs-in-bucket mentality. And assigning blame to random convenient targets, particularly any one that dare to present a positive outlook (justified or not) is definitely not helping solve anything. It's just reinforcing the fucking depressing mess of a zeitgeist we have today.