Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress. That’s according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress. That’s according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In his new self-published Techno-Optimist Manifesto, Andreessen presents his case for the advancement of technology under capitalism as “virtuous” and capable of creating “abundance that lifts all humans”.
Along the way he champions trickle-down economics (famously effective at increasing inequality), claims technology can solve any problem and suggests that slowing AI development is akin to murder.
Andreessen lambasts academia for being “disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences”.
Echoes can be heard of Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous former motto: move fast and break things, of Sam Altman comparing OpenAI to the Manhattan Project, and of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ shared vision of space colonisation.
The future that tech elites imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in: unchecked power, consolidated wealth, low regulation and minimal consequences when technology proves to be harmful.
It is possible for technology to play a prominent and positive role in our collective future but this won’t happen by succumbing to a wilfully ignorant, starry-eyed vision of optimism.
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