Did you get to vote on AI?

When in the course of human events, wars are ongoing across the globe, technology is accelerating at breakneck speed, and negative externalities such as loneliness, suicide, murder and poverty are omnipresent, it becomes necessary to at least try to make sense of what is happening in the world. 

Thus, beginning in a familiar voice, and drawing on insights from authors and thinkers far more intuitive than me, I will attempt to give you, my dear reader, some perspective on not only what is ongoing, but why. 

Perhaps the single largest driving force today is technological change. HBO host Bill Maher once told Elon Musk that he believes it is not the politicians, but rather the people in tech, who shape history. The invention of the printing press, Jacquard loom, automobile, internet and AI changed everything, while the political class played catch up. Yuval Harari likes to ask his audiences: “Did you get to vote on the internet?” No. But perhaps nothing has had a bigger impact on all of our lives. 

Contrary to Maher, however, Harari pointed out in his last book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, that it is not the scientists, but rather political leaders, who decide how the technology is used. There are few things more important than how the US president feels about AI. 

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and former Microsoft executive Craig Mundie have both wondered out loud why there was no discussion about AI in the US presidential race. Following Harari’s point, AI will, like the internet, have a major impact on just about everybody’s life. Did you get to vote on AI? 

No and you never will. Some believe this is because our discourse has been dumbed down. To even mention AI on the campaign trail would leave voters befuddled or worse, seem elitist. 

Another explanation is best summarized by Frank Zappa: “Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex.” Because AI is so important to national security & the geostrategic race with China, it is simply not up for debate. If an anti-AI politician were to emerge, and begin to gain serious traction, the entire media, technological & military complex would conspire to stop them. In an age where just about everything we learn about politics comes from the internet, and where a few major companies control most of the discourse, the powers that be now have the ability to ensure such a Luddite has no shot at winning. If an already elected politician were to turn against AI, they would lose investor confidence, and their regime would collapse or not be reelected. 

There is a concern, then, that democracy cannot survive the 21st century. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin argued in 2017 that whoever leads in AI will rule the world. He is right. Any concerns about safety, the environment, wellbeing etc. are left in the dust. If the USA does not keep the pedal to the medal on AI development, the Chinese and Russians could gain ground, and vice-versa. 

A similar dynamic occurred during the Cold War with nuclear technology. Niall Ferguson writes in the foreword of Henry Kissinger’s last book Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope and the Human Spirit: 

Ask yourself: Which did human beings build more of in the past eighty years: nuclear warheads or nuclear power stations? Today, there are approximately 12,500 nuclear warheads in the world, and the number is currently rising as China adds rapidly to its nuclear arsenal. By contrast, there are 436 nuclear reactors in operation.

Another explanation is technological velocity is inherent to capitalism. The owners of the means of production must extract ever greater profits and maximize efficiency or lose market share to competitors. What The Singularity is Nearer author Ray Kurzweil describes as the law of accelerating returns means the rate of change and therefore exploitation will continue to increase exponentially. Technology is just another means for the bourgeoise to fuck the proletariat. Excuse my French. 

Perhaps the strongest metaphor for what is happening today is provided by Nicole Schwab in her 2014 book The Heart of the Labyrinth, which she plans to have republished in 2025. Schwab argues the environmental crisis has its root in “undervaluing the feminine.” Masculinity is often associated with dominance, control, and individualism. This contributes to a culture of exploitation and disregard for the environment that manifests in behaviors like excessive consumption, reliance on fossil fuels, and a reluctance to acknowledge or address environmental problems. The feminine, on the other hand, is nurturing, giving of life and communal. 

Schwab’s book is relevant to the AI arms race. At a recent event in Doha, Qatar, Goldman Sachs executive Jared Cohen said, in reference to AI data centers:

The US actually has enough natural gas to do this, but […] it’s prohibitively fraught because it has to go through all of these different political jurisdictions that are pushing back for ESG reasons.

In other words, concerns about the environment are getting in the way of the US fully accelerating its AI capabilities. 

Perhaps if the leaders of the US, Russia, China, Ukraine, Israel and so many other countries were women, or at least allowed the feminine to play a larger role in governance, we would not be needlessly killing each other, destroying the environment, and, through unchecked advancement of emerging technologies, potentially ending the human race. Unfortunately, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Bibi Netanyahu, Volodymyr Zelenskyy & Xi Jinping do not fit the bill. 

While the global elite prepare for a Trump presidency, and to head to Davos, the world order has perhaps never been more fragile. This has implications for the general populace. 

In response to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mancione, Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom writes: 

Cheering on a killer is beneath us. Murder is always tragic. I can only imagine what Thompson’s family was thinking when they saw all those laughing emoji posts, or read that a Wikipedia user altered their father and husband’s bio to include “now burning in hell.”

They must have felt powerless. Aggrieved. The victims of colossal insensitivity.

Too bad that, to many Americans using health insurance, that sounds so familiar.

Many feel like they are just another glitch in the Matrix. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is more optimistic: “I believe the future is going to be so bright that no one can do it justice by trying to write about it now; a defining characteristic of the Intelligence Age will be massive prosperity.” Prosperity for who? 

Digitalization and social media forces us to live in a world of hyperconnectivity or fall behind. Yuval Noah Harari, who does not use a cell phone, has noted that he finds it increasingly difficult not to; such a device is mandatory to survive in the 21st century. Constant stimulation and competition have poor mental health outcomes. Since we are always comparing ourselves to one another, many chronically feel as if they are not good enough. If you know what you want, the internet can help you get it. But if you do not, then the algorithms can manipulate you. The protagonist in Schwab’s book, Maya, is confused about her own nature. Therefore, she is constantly looking for love and approval outside of herself. 

This trend is accelerating. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in digital uptake, confusion & loneliness. Brownstone Institute Founder & CEO Jeffrey S. Tucker writes: “Life after lockdowns is fundamentally different than it was before: more degraded, more brutal, more merciless, and more sadistic.” Many, particularly the weakest among us – the poor, the disabled, the addicted, the sick – simply will not make it. 

Club of Rome co-founder Donella Meadows wrote in Thinking in Systems: A Primer: “There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum.” Everything is interconnected. Mental health in Denmark is impacted by US foreign policy, Chinese social media companies & inflation in South Africa. War in the Middle East tore apart college campuses across the West and beyond. Philosopher Nick Bostrom writes in his 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Strategies, and Dangers: “We find ourselves in a thicket of strategic complexity.” So, what to do? 

There is no easy answer. If the US were to pause AI development, as many have argued, the economy would collapse, and China would rule the world.

These processes are larger than any single human, no matter how powerful, and are for the most part out of our control. So, coming back to you, my dear reader; what can you do? 

My unsolicited advice is to try to unplug & disconnect. Study history. In this ever more complicated and meaner world, where speed is a necessity, I fear we are losing all perspective.  Adam Garfinkle wrote in his 2020 column The Erosion of Deep Literacy

Deep literacy has wondrous effects, nurturing our capacity for abstract thought, enabling us to pose and answer difficult questions, empowering our creativity and imagination, and refining our capacity for empathy. It is also generative of successive new insights, as the brain’s circuitry for reading recursively builds itself forward.

It is important to step back from time to time and reflect, perhaps with a good book or three, on not just what is happening, but also what is important.

This is a radical approach nowadays, for AI pioneer Andrew Ng writes: 

By nature, I tend to focus on the future rather than the past. Steve Jobs famously declined to build a corporate museum, instead donating Apple’s archives to Stanford University, because he wanted to keep the company forward-looking. Jeff Bezos encourages teams to approach every day as if it were “Day 1,” a mindset that emphasizes staying in the early, innovative stage of a company or industry. These philosophies resonate with me.

This mentality is endemic throughout Silicon Valley and corporate America. Yet Winston Churchill argued: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.” Maya Angelou once said: “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.”

As we prepare for 2025 let us all take some time to reflect. Schwab writes: “manifesting the future goes hand in hand with resolving one’s past.” 

Indeed.