Sounds Like the typical STEM Coli breh that talks down on non STEM majors, and say that everyone else deserves poverty because,they can do high-end AI that does Calculus 3 with the blink of an eye.
In my experience, most STEM folk aren't openly malicious towards anyone. They're just naive and have tunnel vision. At my university, most students were apolitical. They generally didn't pay attention to major cultural issues or ethical dilemmas, they didn't get involved in activism or big political movements in either direction. They were just interested in their own tech and money/power in their own lives.
The main ethical issue I worry about from STEM folk doesn't have anything to do with negative thoughts about other people. It's that they don't even have the worldview to fully factor in how their work will affect other people until it's too late.
Just look at social media. At what point did all those tech bros begin considering what impact social media would have on the world? Some of them DID start having such thoughts eventually, but it was way to late, after the impacts had already materialized. And then they were just pushed to the side in favor of the people who wanted to keep expanding at all costs.
don't know why you're so sure it'll lead to catastrophe. this is the system functioning as it always has and has little to do with the morality of developers.
That's my whole point. "The system functioning as it always has" is why tech bros have always unquestioningly gotten behind every new military weapon, every new mining project and new polluting industry, every new government surveillance tool, every new society-destroying social media platform. It's why those tech bros who work for corporations have done virtually nothing to stop global warming, limit pesticides, prevent deforestation, keep power out of the hands of dictators, etc.
Developers have never been moral. They do whatever their bosses want them to do because that's what gets them more money and power. And when they don't have a boss, they form a startup whose goal is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible. That's the goal our economic system has given them, so that's the goal they invariably accept, because they don't know any better.
people want to be at the forefront of advancing technology and scientific discoveries. openai even tells their investors that if they succeed theres a risk money may not matter anymore.
Both can be true. Tech bros can be motivated by money, and tech bros can be motivated by dreams of power, fame, of being the person who figures it all out. Either way, when they work for a corporation you get the exact same result.
If they were purely interested with advancing scientific discoveries and tech, then they would work for an academic institution or a government research center. No one works for a corporation without being at least partially financially motivated, the culture there is so all-encompassing that money rules all even if you don't want it to.
while energy is finite (and robot input materials finite) money will continue to matter.
solve fusion energy (or something similar) then maybe not.
Our economic system ensures that money will matter even if we have infinite energy. The system would collapse if money didn't matter, so those who rule the system will simply limit access to energy, or limit access to other resources (land, handware, minerals, etc.) that people need in order to take advantage of energy.
