If your subfloor is rotting away, do you replace it or put new carpeting on top of it?

The city is polluted. Do we replace the entire city or install air filters? It's mostly a matter of scale.

I'd like air filters, but AI is not air filters in this analogy.

Is GenAI more like cigarettes ("cool factor", but harmful in the long run), or is it more like cars (noisy and creates pollution, but super-convenient and therefore something most people should adopt)?

I still struggle with this every day. Maybe I'll figure it out someday soon...

If the carpet is AI, and the subfloor is everything else, then we're already in the process of putting the new carpet overtop of it

And there's a lot of people telling us we can't afford the time or money to replace the subfloor first

I understand in this case the subfloor is unrestrained and unregulated capitalism.

Those two problems are some of the largest we have at the moment. They screw everything up.

We should not optimize for a shitty existence.

I actually think making the problem worse is a good side-effect. The larger and more direct a problem is impacting us the greater impetus for fixing it.

The casualness some people talk about putting large segments of society's lives and livelihoods on the brink never ceases to amaze me.

I really wish our society was able to solve problems before that become enormous, but that just doesn't seem to be something that happens very often. :/

Absolutely. We're incapable of the foresight and coordination needed to stave off these disasters. It doesn't help that "progress" has become the idol of our secular religion. Slowing down or stopping is just sacrilegious to modernity.