Popular culture—and I am clubbing religion under the same roof—also plays such an important role when it comes to technology. I grew up in a Christian-majority state with Christian education; I can vividly recollect that in 6th grade, a teacher of mine was talking about GMOs and plastic surgery: she told us mankind was playing with creation of God. I thought about it for days. Mind you, this was a period in that school when we were asked to refrain from playing games like DOTA or listening to bands like KISS - your usual mark of the beast panic era (in retrospect, this was probably because kids were joining secessionist groups or getting into hard drugs). Then there is also this passive reinforcement: you watch an American TV show where the protagonist is travelling to Europe, and the first comment usually is: "Tomatoes don't taste like anything back in America," it is implicit that this is because of GMO produce.
As an adult, I have a higher scientific tolerance and temperament; my attitude towards GMOs is the same as GLP-1 drugs: if it's going to help mankind, if it's scientifically safe, and will do maximum good, why not use it? I live in a region where people lose their livelihood every year due to floods - providing them a dignified living should be the goal. But I am also living in a region where food safety standards and drug regulations are not stringent. Anybody could package anything as organic and sell it in the farmers' market on Sundays, while presenting it as a small business. All this to say, when rich continents like Europe outright ban something like GMOs, it tends to have a cascading effect. When I am buying something in India, I look up if it is US FDA approved or matches European standards, and when I see such negative perception toward GMOs, despite my scientific tolerance, my gut says otherwise.
Side note: 2001: A Space Odyssey is such a beautiful movie :)
This paper from 10 years ago from the Nuffield institute, about the different things people actually mean, when they say a technology is “unnatural”, is worth a read. For some it’s religious, for others environmental, for others something else. Very interesting!
Also agree that GMOs sort of took on a life of their own, including in popular culture, and the EU’s approach seems to have had some downstream effects elsewhere (although is potentially being revised now).
Gartner's recnt surveys show that 88% of HR leaders feel their orgs havent realized value from AI tools yet, which aligns with your finding about mixed public sentiment. The gap between adoptio and actuaal business value is somthing firms are struggling with across the board. Understanding public atitudes is key because employee skepticism directly impacts how these tools get integrated into workflows.
We're building a version of this over at Collective Intelligence Project; would love to chat with you about this!
Popular culture—and I am clubbing religion under the same roof—also plays such an important role when it comes to technology. I grew up in a Christian-majority state with Christian education; I can vividly recollect that in 6th grade, a teacher of mine was talking about GMOs and plastic surgery: she told us mankind was playing with creation of God. I thought about it for days. Mind you, this was a period in that school when we were asked to refrain from playing games like DOTA or listening to bands like KISS - your usual mark of the beast panic era (in retrospect, this was probably because kids were joining secessionist groups or getting into hard drugs). Then there is also this passive reinforcement: you watch an American TV show where the protagonist is travelling to Europe, and the first comment usually is: "Tomatoes don't taste like anything back in America," it is implicit that this is because of GMO produce.
As an adult, I have a higher scientific tolerance and temperament; my attitude towards GMOs is the same as GLP-1 drugs: if it's going to help mankind, if it's scientifically safe, and will do maximum good, why not use it? I live in a region where people lose their livelihood every year due to floods - providing them a dignified living should be the goal. But I am also living in a region where food safety standards and drug regulations are not stringent. Anybody could package anything as organic and sell it in the farmers' market on Sundays, while presenting it as a small business. All this to say, when rich continents like Europe outright ban something like GMOs, it tends to have a cascading effect. When I am buying something in India, I look up if it is US FDA approved or matches European standards, and when I see such negative perception toward GMOs, despite my scientific tolerance, my gut says otherwise.
Side note: 2001: A Space Odyssey is such a beautiful movie :)
Thanks Kalim!
This paper from 10 years ago from the Nuffield institute, about the different things people actually mean, when they say a technology is “unnatural”, is worth a read. For some it’s religious, for others environmental, for others something else. Very interesting!
https://cdn.nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/Naturalness-analysis-paper-1.pdf
Also agree that GMOs sort of took on a life of their own, including in popular culture, and the EU’s approach seems to have had some downstream effects elsewhere (although is potentially being revised now).
Thanks for reading!
Just started reading the paper. Idk why I assumed 10 years ago means 2005; I guess we are all growing old hahaha
Gartner's recnt surveys show that 88% of HR leaders feel their orgs havent realized value from AI tools yet, which aligns with your finding about mixed public sentiment. The gap between adoptio and actuaal business value is somthing firms are struggling with across the board. Understanding public atitudes is key because employee skepticism directly impacts how these tools get integrated into workflows.
A more formalized and standardized method for measuring AI attitudes over time is critical. To connect the dots to why this matters for AI accountability more specifically I recently wrote this review: https://www.ai-accountability-review.com/p/informing-ai-accountability-with