Looking at the Future Through a $100 Bill: Quite a Vision
November 9, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Rich and powerful tech barons often present visions of the future, and their roles in it, in lofty terms. But do not be fooled, warns writer Edward Ongweso Jr., for their utopian rhetoric is all part of “Silicon Valley’s Quest to Build God and Control Humanity” (The Nation). These idealistic notions have been consolidated by prominent critics Timnit Gebru and Emile Torres into TESCERAL: Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism. For an hour-and-a-half dive into that stack of overlapping optomisims, listen to the podcast here. Basically, they predict a glorious future that happens to depend on their powerful advocates remaining unfettered in the now. How convenient.
Ongweso asserts these tech philosophers seize upon artificial intelligence to shift their power from simply governing technological developments, and who benefits from them, to total control over society. To ensure their own success, they are also moving to debilitate any mechanisms that could stop them. All while distracting the masses with their fanciful visions. Ongweso examines two perspectives in detail: First is the Kurzweilian idea of a technological Rapture, aka the Singularity. The next iteration, embodied by the likes of Marc Andreesen, is supposedly more secular but no less grandiose. See the article for details on both. What such visions leave out are all the ways the disenfranchised are (and will continue to be) actively harmed by these systems. Which is, of course, the point. Ongweso concludes:
“Regardless of whether saving the world with AI angels is possible, the basic reason we shouldn’t pursue it is because our technological development is largely organized for immoral ends serving people with abhorrent visions for society. The world we have is ugly enough, but tech capitalists desire an even uglier one. The logical conclusion of having a society run by tech capitalists interested in elite rule, eugenics, and social control is ecological ruin and a world dominated by surveillance and apartheid. A world where our technological prowess is finely tuned to advance the exploitation, repression, segregation, and even extermination of people in service of some strict hierarchy. At best, it will be a world that resembles the old forms of racist, sexist, imperialist modes of domination that we have been struggling against. But the zealots who enjoy control over our tech ecosystem see an opportunity to use new tools—and debates about them—to restore the old regime with even more violence that can overcome the funny ideas people have entertained about egalitarianism and democracy for the last few centuries. Do not fall for the attempt to limit the debate and distract from their political projects. The question isn’t whether AI will destroy or save the world. It’s whether we want to live in the world its greatest shills will create if given the chance.”
Good question.
Cynthia Murrell, November 9, 2023
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