NH2026 Friday Evening Celebration - Michael Ots

It was a cold January morning and a US submarine came to the surface of the icy waters of the Atlantic at just the wrong moment.

It was in the path of another vessel.

The two collided and the submarine sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Divers were sent down to see if anyone had survived the incident and as they came to the hull of the wrecked submarine, they heard this sound of tapping coming from inside the submarine.

It was a message in Morse code being repeated over and over again and the message was simply this: "Is there any hope?" Is there any hope? It's a good question to ask, isn't it? That's a question that many people in our world, in our society are asking at this time.

As we look at our world with its conflicts and injustice and war, is there any hope? As we look at our own society with its problems and divisions, is there any hope? As we consider our own lives and our families and the concerns and fears that we might have, is there any hope? And you know, many people are starting to give up hope.

The levels of pessimism and fear in the future are higher than they have been for a long time at this moment in history.

Is there any hope? Well, you know, there are some people who say that there is hope.

There is hope for our world.

There is hope for our society.

The environmental problems that we face can be dealt with.

The poverty and injustice can be dealt with.

Even sickness and death can be eradicated and they're not Christians necessarily sitting in this tent who think that.

They are people who believe that through technology and artificial intelligence in particular, all of life's problems can be dealt with, that there is hope, that one day through not just artificial intelligence, but artificial general intelligence, technology will solve all of life's problems and we can have a bright future.

Wonder what you think about those kind of claims.

Well, I can think of three possible reactions that we might have.

The first is to be perhaps somewhat skeptical.

Will technology really be able to do everything people say it will do one day? I was reading a book a few years ago by Yuval Noah Harari.

He wrote a book called Sapiens looking back at what he thought was his version of history and another book, Homo Deus, which is his prediction of what will happen in the future.

And in the introduction he says that in the past humanity has had three great problems, war, famine and plague.

But then he goes on to say that because of technology, we no longer need to fi- fear war, famine and plague.

These things have been dealt with and we won't worry about them again.

I kind of thought this was rather ironic because I was reading this book in the spring of 2020 as the whole world was locked down because of a plague called COVID.

And I was thinking maybe his predictions about the future are maybe a little bit too optimistic.

He goes on later in the book to say that death is just a technical problem that we will soon eradicate.