Comment by pests
2 years ago
> Conversational interfaces definitely increase the accessibility of knowledge.
Shouldn't increasing the accessibility of knowledge be a good thing but yet your tone seems to imply the opposite?
2 years ago
> Conversational interfaces definitely increase the accessibility of knowledge.
Shouldn't increasing the accessibility of knowledge be a good thing but yet your tone seems to imply the opposite?
Depends on the value you ascribe to people's use of easy knowledge.
Circa-1995, I would have said uncategorically yes! It's a wonderful thing!
Today?
I'm much more of the opinion that knowledge hard-earned is knowledge valued and respected. And trivially-earned is... not.
I don't think it's possible to suppress knowledge. Even about NBC weapons.
But I'm on the fence as to whether "putting it on the high shelf where anyone has to work to get it" is a net positive or negative for society as a whole.
Even knowledge of how to commit genocide or manufacture chemical weapons?
Those are not big secrets. You can find history textbooks which explain how to become a dictator and order your minions to commit genocide. You can find plenty of recipes online which explain how to manufacture chemical weapons. In particular the original chemical weapon chlorine gas is rather trivial to create.
And yet genocide and use of chemical weapons are still fairly rare. Most people choose not to do those things, and there are a number of practical obstacles. Knowledge or lack thereof isn't the issue.
that knowledge (the science of how to manipulate people) may be helpful in stopping it from happening because it could be used to warn people that the new charismatic dictator has 9/10 properties of others who have committed atrocities.