The Allure of Effective Altruism in Tech Culture

Technology is now involved in all industries, and there is a need for a critical and ethical approach to technology's development and integration into daily life for the betterment of all.

Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist chaplain at both Harvard and MIT, and also the author of the books  Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation and Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.

In this episode, Greg discusses the concept of humanistic chaplaincy, its historical roots, and the emergence and acceptance of humanism as an alternative to theistic religions.. Greg explains the idea that technology, specifically the tech industry, functions as a modern religion complete with its own beliefs, practices, and influence over human lives. He also discusses the potential wins and pitfalls of this new 'tech religion' and the need for a reformation akin to that of historical religious movements. They also focus on the ethical implications of tech's pervasive role in society and compare it to traditional religions. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

The belief system behind Silicon Valley

19:15: This is the myth of the Silicon Valley unicorn. You’re disruption, right? You are going to disrupt taxi cabs and you are going to get Uber and Lyft. You are going to disrupt, you know, on and on and on, right? And so, what I would say is that the religion is a religion that we actually are teaching a lot of young people today. I mean, we may not frame it as a religion, but to say that it's simply, "We're just doing an MBA, man, it's fine." Like, "We're just teaching people how to run a company." Like no, you're teaching people a very particular ideology for how they should relate to who they are as humans, how they should relate to their fellow human beings, what it is to be a good person and live a good life, and how we should structure communities. Because our entire society is structured around the whims and ideals of this religion now.

Reclaiming humanity from tech worship

30:58: The technologies that were created should be about making human lives more human and humane, not getting people to devote themselves more and more fanatically to tech, as if it were the God that demanded jealously that we worship it.

When AI becomes a god  

46:40: The biggest problem in the world today, they have been saying for years now, is not climate change or nuclear war, or the lack of ethics, or authoritarianism, or what—it's unaligned AI. And that they have been advising through their 80,000 Hours website. Effective ultras have, for years now, said that any young person wanting to do the most good should put their efforts, their life, their 80,000 hours of work—which, by the way, is a lot of work... They should put their 80,000 hours of work into making sure that this tech God that we are building likes us and, you know, likes us back, worships us back, or at least takes good care of us, as we are now becoming its flock. And that, to me, is—as bizarre as any other theological tenet I have ever read about in 30 years of feeling.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Humanism
• Jonathan Haidt
• Constantine the Great
• Technopoly
• Millenarianism
• Ray Kurzweil
• Elon Musk
• SMART Recovery
• Sam Altman
• Satya Nadella
• Luddite
• Effective Altruism
• Sam Bankman-Fried
• William MacAskill

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Harvard University
• Faculty Profile at MIT
• Profile on Wikipedia
• HumanistChaplaincy.org

Guest Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation
• Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe