The Rise Of Technoauthoritarianism
This article appeared in Al-Youm newspaper. Register here .
If you had to describe the basic ideology of Silicon Valley in one story, the first thing that would come to mind is Mark Zuckerberg, who was sitting in front of the blue light of his computer about 20 years ago, discussing the new order with a friend. Website, Facebook. , he was working. He was forced to know a lot of personal information about his friends:
Zuckerberg: Yes, if you want information about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Ask.
Zuckerberg: I have more than 4,000 emails, photos, contacts and social networks.
Is it a good morning friend ?
Zuckerberg: People just sent it.
Zuckerberg: I don't know why.
Zuckerberg: “Trust me.”
Zuckerberg : You idiots.
This conversation, which was later posted to the chat logs, was quickly followed by another, more polite but equally frank speech. In the year and at the famous Christmas party in 2007, Zuckerberg met future COO Sheryl Sandberg, who, together with Zuckerberg, would turn the platform into a digital imperial superpower. Zuckerberg, who originally embraced Facebook's "business before country" slogan, told Sandberg that he wanted every American with an Internet connection to have a Facebook account. It turned out to be the perfect assignment for Sandberg, who once told a colleague that she was “put on this planet to change organizations.”
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Facebook (now known as Meta) has become the epitome of everything that is wrong with Silicon Valley. Its role in the global spread of misinformation represents an ongoing crisis. Let's also remember the company's mysterious mood-monitoring experiment in 2012, in which Facebook intentionally changed what users saw in their News Feed to influence people's emotional states. Or it was his involvement in the 2017 genocide in Myanmar (he once posted a business card that said “I'm the CEO, bitch” ).
However, overall, Facebook's business model continues to be a benchmark for the tech industry as a whole, just as other social platforms (TikTok) and technological advances (artificial intelligence) eclipse Facebook in terms of cultural importance.
You must stop worshiping at the altar and convincing yourself that you should be the one making historic decisions on behalf of global citizens who did not vote for you and do not share your values or lack of values. Many inconveniences including modesty and sensitivity. Many Silicon Valley giants have made similar offers time and time again. YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by Meta), and Twitter (which Elon Musk insists on calling X) have done just as much damage to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook. Given the development of generative AI in Silicon Valley, we should be prepared for this damage to multiply in the coming years.
The behavior of these companies and the people who run them is often hypocritical, greedy, and rank-oriented. But behind this literature lies something far more dangerous: a clear and coherent ideology that rarely emerges: totalitarian technocracy. As Silicon Valley's most powerful companies have grown, this ideology has become stronger, more complacent, more insidious, and, in the face of increasing criticism, more resentful.
The new technocrats use language that ostensibly addresses intellectual values (reason, progress, freedom), but in reality they lead an anti-democratic and illiberal movement. Many of them claim to support freedom of expression unconditionally, but retaliate against those who say things they do not like. Tends to fringe beliefs: All technological developments are intrinsically and unconditionally good. that you should always build because you can; that regardless of the quality of the data, the continuous flow of information is highly valuable; This privacy is an old concept; We must embrace the day when artificial intelligence will overtake us. Most importantly, the power is unlimited. The systems they have built or are working to build (to restructure relationships, re-engineer human social networks, introduce AI into everyday life, etc.) impose these beliefs on uninformed and generally uninformed populations in any meaningful way. . All this and they are still trying to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that they are inferior to dogs.
Comparisons between Silicon Valley and Wall Street or Washington, D.C., are common, and you can understand why: they are power centers and magnets for people whose ambitions go beyond mere mortals. But Silicon Valley's influence is much greater than that of Wall Street and Washington. It is likely to change society more profoundly than any other center of power in any post-New Deal era. Many Americans are rightly concerned about the rise of authoritarianism among senior Republicans, but they risk overlooking another growing force of illiberal forces: powerful and powerful tech tycoons.
The Shakespearean play on OpenAI that unfolded late last year shows how deeply Facebook's evil mentality of "move fast and break things" has become ingrained and celebrated in Silicon Valley. Founded in 2015, OpenAI is a non-profit organization committed to bringing AI to the world in a way that benefits the world's people. Behind its creation was the belief that the technology was too powerful and dangerous to be developed solely for commercial purposes.
But in 2019, when the technology began to surprise even those working on its growth rate, the company added a business unit to raise additional capital. Microsoft first invested $1 billion, then several billion more. Last fall, CEO Sam Altman was ousted and quickly rehired in a terrible performance that showed the erosion of protections for OpenAI's flagship national holdings. Those who wanted to oust Altman believed that he focused too much on the pace of security developments. But Microsoft's response — offering to hire Altman and someone else from OpenAI to rebuild the team — sparked a game of chicken that led to Altman being reinstated. The whole event was complex, and Altman may have been the right man for the job, but the message was clear: the need for scale and profit certainly outweighed considerations of safety and public accountability.
Silicon Valley continues to attract the most talented philanthropists working to create a more connected and information-rich global community. Even the most revolutionary companies have created better tools. But these large-scale devices are processing and control systems. They promise community but sow division; They spread falsehood while claiming to defend the truth. They wrap themselves in concepts like empowerment and freedom, but they constantly control us. Dominant values can rob us of our free will and make us addicted to our news.
The theoretical promises of artificial intelligence are as impressive as the once-in-a-lifetime promises of social networks and the designs of highly biased architects. Artificial intelligence can cure many diseases. This could truly revolutionize science and unleash lost knowledge. Silicon Valley is expanding and monopolizing social networks under intense technological pressures. Open AI, Microsoft, Google, and other companies at the forefront of AI development are not focusing on areas of high social and environmental importance, and they certainly are not doing so with any level of transparency and intelligence. Instead, they are in the race to build quickly and increase profitability.
This is not the imperative of the main technocratic philosophy that you must do if you can build anything new. “I think in a really successful world, this should be a government project,” Altman told my colleague Ross Anderson last year, referring to OpenAI's efforts to develop artificial general intelligence. But Altman still intends to continue building himself. Or as Zuckerberg told The New Yorker years ago: “Isn't there bound to be a large social network of people?” ...If we don't do it, someone else will.
Technocracy grew as a political ideology after World War I, led by a small group of scientists and engineers in New York seeking to create a new social structure to replace representative democracy . Although the movement was a political failure (people ultimately supported President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal), it was intellectually more successful and ushered in the modernist zeitgeist in art and literature, sharing some of its values. The modernist slogan raised by the American poet Ezra Pound, “Make it new,” could easily become a slogan for technocrats. A parallel movement was the Italian Futurists, led by poets such as F. T. Marinetti. Marinetti used his aphorisms: “Walk and you will not perish” and “Contemplate, not create.”
The spirit of technocrats and futurists was important in itself. “I am dissatisfied when we walk in a park surrounded by dark pines,” Marinetti said in a 1929 lecture. “The famous Futurists channeled their enthusiasm for technology, action and speed into fascism. Marinetti followed the Futurist Manifesto (1909) with the Fascist Manifesto (1919). His friend Pound was fond of Benito Mussolini, and the poet promoted Pound. He admired fascism , admired Mussolini, and cooperated with the regime in producing a radio program in which he praised Adolf Hitler, and the evolution from Futurism to fascism was not inevitable (many of Pound's friends feared him or thought he was crazy ). But it shows how a cultural movement arose in a time of social unrest, based on opposition to culture and history. It may be frustration or political ideology.
In October, venture capitalist and technocrat Marc Andreessen published a 5,000-word manifesto he called the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” an amalgam of ideologies strikingly reminiscent of, and particularly in honor of, Italy’s future leaders like Maretti. . . Andreessen, in addition to being one of Silicon Valley's most influential billionaire investors, is known for his cynicism and cynicism, and despite the calls for optimism in the title, the article seems to stem in part from his disillusionment with the technologies that came before him. for him. They are no longer "properly respected." It is a telling document that reflects the worldview he and other technocrats hold.
“There are no physical problems that cannot be solved by new techniques,” Andreessen wrote, including those caused by technology. Not only is technology constantly improving, he writes, its progress must always be accelerated “so that the upward spiral of technological capital continues forever” and criticizes anti-technology campaigns that use names such as “technoethics” and “existential risk.”
Or consider his political activity in what might be considered the Apostles' Creed:
We believe in combining intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop and expanding without limits...We believe in adventure. Enjoy a hero's journey, rebel against the status quo, explore uncharted territories, defeat dragons, and return the spoils to our community.
We believe in nature, but we believe in overcoming nature. We are not old people who are afraid of lightning. We are top predators. Lightning works to our advantage.
Anderson named several "patron saints" of the movement, including Marinetti. He quotes the Futurist Manifesto , replacing Marinetin's "poetry" with "technology":
Beauty only exists in struggle. There is no masterpiece without a violent character. Technology must be a brutal assault on the forces of the unknown to force them to bow before man.
Let's be clear: Andreessen's manifesto is not a fascist document, it is an extremist document. He takes a reasonable position (technology has greatly improved human life in general) and twists it into the absurd conclusion that any attempt to slow down technological progress is contemptible. This position makes sense only as a religious belief, and in practice only serves to absolve other Silicon Valley giants of any moral or civic duty. To each other, without any effort. appreciation. Social costs or history. Andersen cites a list of enemies and “zombie ideas” that he encourages his followers to defeat, including “institutions” and “cultures.”
“Our enemy,” Andersen writes, “is the expert, the one with a comprehensive view of the world, addicted to abstract theories, fanciful beliefs, and social engineering, disconnected from the real world, illusory, unchosen and irresponsible, playing God with their lives.” Other." ", in complete isolation from its consequences.
Interestingly, this statement fits Andreessen and other Silicon Valley experts well. There is no doubt that the world they have created in the last two decades has no effect on its architects, who rely on neglected social engineering and impose their abstract theories and strange beliefs on us all.
Some of the individual principles Anderson presents in his statement are trivial. But the fanaticism that spreads from his glory and power should make you sit upright. Key figures in Silicon Valley, including Musk, have moved toward openly illiberal ideas in recent years. On the year and in 2020, Donald Trump's share of the vote in Silicon Valley was 23%, up from a low of 20% in 2016.
The main dangers of today's totalitarian technocracy are not political, at least not in the traditional sense. However, a privileged few already have somewhat autocratic control over setting the cultural rules and standards of the digital world, which can be as powerful as a political force.
In his 1961 farewell address , President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation of the dangers of technocracy. “While we must respect scientific research and discoveries, we must also recognize the equal and opposite danger that public policy will become captive to the scientific and technological elite,” he added. The role of government is to shape, balance, and integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system, which always aim to achieve the highest goals of our free society.
Eight years later, the country's first computers were connected to the ARPANET, a precursor to the World Wide Web, in 1993. At the time, Silicon Valley was considered a utopia for big, optimistic capitalists looking for innovative ideas. To understand. Change the world without bureaucracy or tradition at the speed of the Internet (currently 14.4 Kbps). This culture has had its flaws from the beginning, but it has led to American-made innovative and revolutionary hardware and software, sometimes with stunning aesthetics.
I have long leaned toward Andreessen's view on technology regulation. He believed that the social network could still be good, and that given enough time, the values that best served the common good would naturally prevail. I have opposed the idea of the need to regulate social media, in part because I did not (and still do not believe) the government could do so without harm, forgetting that it is inconsistent with protecting the freedom of society. The press in the United States threatens the public's right to information.
But in recent years, it has become clear that regulation is necessary simply because the growth of technocracy shows that Silicon Valley's leaders are not simply acting in the public interest. There is still much to be done to protect children from the dangers of social media and to end monopolies and authoritarian policing that harm society. Likewise, I believe that a single organization will not be enough to effectively combat the cultural decay sown by the new technocrats.
Universities must regain their leadership position in developing world-changing technologies for the benefit of humanity. (Harvard, Stanford, and MIT could invest in a consortium for such efforts; their endowments combined amount to about $110 billion.)
Individuals must also lead the way. Maybe you can't give up social media entirely or give up work shadowing programs; Maybe you don't even want to give up these things. But there's a special power in expressing thoughts, and we can all start doing it...for ourselves. networks of real, genuine friends; For our schools; For our temples. It would make sense to develop more complex general criteria for discussing and making decisions about how we use invasive technologies in interpersonal relationships and in our society. This should include tough rules about the use of apps and YouTube in the classroom, the proliferation of smartphones in the hands of teenagers, and the disregard for private lives. People who believe we all deserve better should lead these efforts.
Our children are not data sets to review, track and sell. Our mental products are not just AI guides used for tracking and fraud. Our lives are not intended for our lives, they are not for our planet, a tree, a swimmer, and a glorious, glorious, glorious teenager. We will all be the best version of ourselves when we are all able to learn and pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass.
Technology is the key to improving the world. But first we have to express our desire to see the world - the problems we want to solve with values, rights and the values of individuals. , health and happiness. And the organizations that represent us are not only informed by technical and small technologies, not only to promote technological technologies, and not only to use them for individuals and society.
We should not live in a world that will create new technologies. We do not need to accept the growing projects of the growing human and your information projects. Each of us has freedom of movement.
“Let's build” none of that. There are no additional algorithmic nutritional packages. There is no infrastructure designed to have more influence, more power - more control. We will pay attention every day; It is expensive and desperate for their personal interests and political purposes. Don't give up on them.
This article appeared in the March 2024 issue, “Silicon Valley Deadpots.”