BBC Radio 4 series - "What Happened to Progress?"

[patrick]

A series of three 40 minute radio programmes on the theme of "progress" by author and broadcaster Matthew Sweet. An interesting backdrop to the InSECT Project's focus on science and truth.

Matthew Sweet explores the idea of a 'polycrisis' of progress across the intertwined spheres of technology, economic expansion, climate and the global political order.

In the spheres of technology, industry, economic growth and geopolitics the notion of human progress seems to have gone into reverse. There are widespread fears that new and incomprehensible technologies will turn against us. The industrial revolutions that enabled prosperity and comfort are now fuelling our ecological self-destruction. And just when we need global institutions to help regulate technological tyranny and combat climate disaster, the postwar architecture of the UN, international law and human rights seem increasingly marginalised in a world order that itself seems to be devolving.

For centuries, technology and scientific development, economic expansion and global governance were all seen as markers of progress - the Enlightenment’s promise of endless, forward improvement. But across all these fields this narrative now seems to be in crisis.

The idea of progress is so hardwired into our culture and psychology, it's not an easy idea to give up. But is the idea of endless progress itself now part of the problem? And progress for whom? It’s a relatively new idea - older periods in human history imagined the passing of time in cyclical or seasonal terms far more attuned to sustainability and the natural world. Given our current age of ‘polycrisis’ - the interconnection of global technology, climate catastrophe and geopolitical disorder - do we need to rethink how to think the future beyond the concept of linear time, endless expansion and progress?

Author, historian and broadcaster Matthew Sweet asks what happened to progress - has it stopped? Are we going backwards? How have our ideas about progress themselves changed? With the help of thinkers, historians, writers and activists, Matthew asks if the concept can be re-imagined to give us newfound agency, shared humanity and most of all, hope.

The series is available here - note that availability outside the UK may vary (for reasons of copyright).

[HarryCollins]

I’ve listened to Episode 1 and quite enjoyed it, though the one-talking-head-after-another format is not my favourite because it doesn’t encourage conclusions, just ‘views’ or ‘perspectives’ in sequence. This is fine in the humanities but the sciences should always be looking for sound arguments, not just debate. For example, I want to intervene and say that no-one on the programme understands that (a) yes computers are very dangerous but (b) not in the way that most pundits think. I don’t think super-intelligent computers are going to keep us as pets, I think the much more immediate and real danger is that stupid computers are going to be mistaken for intelligent human-like thinkers and we will volunteer to enslave ourselves to them. This is isn’t just an opinion, you can see it happening, but it needs lots of examples to show it and the talking heads perspective isn’t the right way to provide them. The danger, then, is in destroying our ways of thinking by infiltrating our societies with other ways of thinking – digital ways – and they are rapidly destroying our societies and taking the joy and creativity out of human life. Strangely, the cumulation of talking heads is very like LLMs scanning the internet.
On the other hand, it is interesting to view the InSECT project in this very much larger context because it helps us see what it is we are doing. We are looking at one aspect of society over one fairly short period of time. We are saying that destroying the idea of expertise is something that potential dictators want to do and they are doing it here and now. And we are offering one way of safeguarding expertise. This is explaining more exactly how expertise works, why it is valuable, and how to recognise it. And we are trying to deliver that to citizens in the classroom. It’s a small project in terms of the grand idea of progress but we have a developed conclusion and it is a project where we have, at least, a small chance of success.

Harry Collins