<story><title>Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/sundar-pichai-google-corner-office.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Kurtz79</author><text>To put the title into context:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve humanity’s problems. It was always naïve to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity’s problems. I think we’re both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>discoball</author><text>&amp;lt;&amp;lt;But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve humanity’s problems. It was always naïve to think so. Technology is an enabler&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&lt;p&gt;Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he&amp;#x27;s right about humanity having to solve its problems but he&amp;#x27;s forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity&amp;#x27;s best interest in their heart.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/sundar-pichai-google-corner-office.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Kurtz79</author><text>To put the title into context:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve humanity’s problems. It was always naïve to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity’s problems. I think we’re both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SquishyPanda23</author><text>Part of me can&amp;#x27;t help but read this a little cynically.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re starting to articulate a shift away from Larry Page&amp;#x27;s idealistic view of making information universally accessible and useful and toward tempering expectations about what technology can do.&lt;p&gt;After that they&amp;#x27;ll pivot increasingly toward a position that lets them justify the drone and censorship programs without the baggage of Page&amp;#x27;s original naivety.&lt;p&gt;Again, that&amp;#x27;s an overly cynical take. But it&amp;#x27;s kind of hard to avoid reading that as a possibility.</text></comment>