>But I assure you that the net positive of smartphones, especially cheap Androids, have had a significantly more positive effect on society than negative, particularly in the developing world.

My point is that the tool which was meant to augment one particular aspect of life, has metastasized into being a cancer on many other aspects of our lives, and that has downstream consequences on society as a whole.

Keeping this in mind, being a bullish on AI seems foolish.

edit: Perhaps a better thesis for my reservations with rapid technological progress: smart phones were supposed to help us adjust to society, but society instead adjusted to them. AI is positioned to do the same, and we need to ask ourselves what those changes could look like, and if they're for the better, or for the worse.

>where we have the luxury to be worried about "smartphone addiction"

I reject this, and any similar framing that amounts to "because there are other, greater problems at play, worrying about this relatively lesser problem is worthless."

A problem that impacts people is a problem that deserves attention, especially if an absolute terms the number of people impacted are in the tens/hundreds of millions.

Social constructivism is tougher and tougher than “just tools.” Could the so-called “addictiveness” consist partly of the many other devices smartphones replaced? Sure, some attention economy but also just turn off the data?

> My point is that the tool which was meant to augment one particular aspect of life, has metastasized into being a cancer on many other aspects of our lives, and that has downstream consequences on society as a whole.

This is true of all important tools in history. From computers, to electricity, cars, steam, even agriculture. They reshape society and its practices. This has been documented multiple times. One I can remember on top of my head, but is not limited to, is historical materialism.

From an misesian perspective, this seems fairly obvious:

1. smartphones are extremely useful (being miniature computers and all);

2. people tend to optimize their actions with the best tools available (i.e. smartphones in this case);

3. people will see others using smartphone increasing and will try to leverage that for their own goals, thus further adopting smartphones (even if indirectly);

4. the economy is the sum of human action, so this progressive adoption changes the economy and the culture.

> A problem that impacts people is a problem that deserves attention, especially if an absolute terms the number of people impacted are in the tens/hundreds of millions.

The real issue with your post is that you seem to be trying to fix smartphones addiction by getting rid of phones, ignoring the benefits they brought and the previous problems they fixed.

Also, every problem impacts people.