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Comment by livingsoft | Hacker News Reader

Close, but no. Software is about the mind, and its ability to shape (and be shaped by) its environment. Software was about "people" back when we had to pool our keystrokes together just to keep simple websites running - now we have the technical means to face the true nature of the problem, which is political: just like people have autonomy over their bodies, they deserve autonomy over their software, without having to rely on a corrupt and incompetent industry, addicted to ruining their own products for profit.

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> just like people have autonomy over their bodies, they deserve autonomy over their software, without having to rely on a corrupt and incompetent industry

The technical means you mention won't give you that. The same people that make the industry "corrupt and incompetent" are leveraging those technical means to make it even more corrupt and less competent. Meanwhile, the rest of us who work in that industry are rapidly losing power to push back.

You can't rely solely on technology to solve problems rooted in human nature. I mean, we have better technology than at any point in human history, and somehow we're regressing on the issue of bodily autonomy.

This is why I'm so frustrated with people who are fanatical about AI adoption. It's not a panacea, it won't usher in some shiny utopia, it's just another technology that can be used both to improve lives and to oppress. If you take a careful look at our society, you can see which of those two uses is currently dominant.

  > You can't rely solely on technology to solve problems rooted in human nature.

i just reply to highlight this; so many people don't get this...

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