Hello! Quite a lot of interesting points in this post. I like it a lot!

I'll throw some random reactions in the mix.

I often have “epiphany” moments while taking my nightly walk. I could give up walking as I have had a car all my adult life. But strangely people are walking when they don't need to, just for exercise and quiet time with nature. Maybe the equivalent will happen when machines are able to do brainy things for us. We won't have to do them but may still, to exercise the neurons and for whatever pleasure is in it.

Having screens in front of our face, whether large or small, certainly has negative consequences. But how about the positive ones. Some small percentage of people are creative types and are soaking in all the creative stuff out there. They integrate it, and produce some original content of their own which they then put out for fun and/or profit.

Most of the rest of us might be just wasting time, but we're all born with potential existential dread and we worry about what our life is all for, since we're small, weak and limited in time in this life. The escapism of the screens is just the latest in a long history of soothing our worries about the future. If we're lucky, hopefully we learn something about ourselves and the realities of the world in the process so we can deal with our inner thoughts constructively.

But instead of (useful tech dev vs. trivial pursuits)

In my opinion, it's not an either/or thing. Both are happening. We're creating our own new future, and we're entertaining ourselves. Basically we Have To use AI for tech dev because you can be sure totalitarian states will be doing that. If we don't want to have our lives dictated to us, then the relatively freer societies have to stay in this tech race, and hopefully win. I'm not saying that the US and "Western" govs are all that great, or don't need improvement. I think someone once said we're the least worst form of gov, which may be true. I'm not much into politics. But I'll take living in the US over NK any day. We Have To Win the AI race to have any chance of freedom in the future.

Just my random thoughts and opinions inspired by your thought provoking and interesting post! Thanks for that, I appreciate you! And what I write here is always subject to change as new data comes in. I'm not married to any of my thoughts or opinions. I change them when I find better ones. Always willing to listen and converse.

Have a great weekend!

!ALIVE !BBH !UNI !PIZZA !LADY