It’s as difficult to maintain control over technology as it is to maintain control of the polity.
It’s the one weird trick that capitalism and democracy share.
It saddens me so few people today comprehend it.
Let’s start with tech. The huge inflow of capital into AI over four years, starting with Palantir, extending to OpenAI and Tesla, made some of its leaders crazy. The enormous valuations given to just a few companies made them believe they could rule the world forever. Their ability to create an AI Cloud for politics, and use that cloud to elect their chosen stooges, was headier still.
But as DeepSeek has shown, they were wrong about the market, as were all those who analyzed it. This includes me. AI will not develop in a top-down manner. There won’t be just a few companies with the Gift of AI, ruling like Gods over everyone else. I’m amused that it took a Chinese company to demonstrate the fact, but there it is.
The thousands of software engineers laid off by AI, especially those under 40, now have an enormous opportunity in front of them. By doing just what their database engineer dads did a quarter century ago, when they got laid off by the dot-bomb, they will create a new tech world.
It’s difficult to describe how different 1999 and 2019 were. IBM, AT&T, and GE were still relevant in 1999. Apple was just a consumer electronics company in 1999. Microsoft was under serious government threat in 1999. Google, Nvidia, and Amazon were practically start-ups, and Meta wasn’t even a glint in Mark Zuckerberg’s teenage eye.
Moore’s Law accelerates change. Huang’s Law puts this process into overdrive. This is the lesson of our lives.
The Inevitability of Change
Fast forward and we have the Cloud Czars, along with Nvidia and Tesla, believing themselves immortal. They’re not. As I wrote last week, they may be making the same mistakes IBM and AT&T made back then. Hubris, bureaucracy, the illusion of control, it’s all so much like the AI engines they have built for themselves.
You can do better. You can join one of many open source AI projects out there. You can learn from them, then contribute to them. You can find friends, allies, and build your own company, today, just as your fathers did then. You can challenge the Cloud Czars, and you can beat them.
That’s what the history of technology tells us. Unlike in previous generations, where AT&T, Ford, and Exxon maintained political control until their industries were displaced, today’s tech leaders don’t have that luxury. Amazon may spend $100 billion on infrastructure this year. That’s infrastructure you can use to build AI agents, AI models, and organize AI businesses. The same is true for Meta’s $75 billion. Microsoft and Google won’t keep you off their networks. Nvidia will sell you hardware, starting with the $3,000 PC to be introduced later this year.
The Political Lesson
The reaction of political liberals to this lesson is astounding. They’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They’re predicting a new Hitler era, led by a dementia patient and his idiot sidekick. I think they’ve read The Man in the High Castle a few too many times. Watch the Amazon series instead.
In politics, as in business, there is no such thing as once and for all. You are constantly setting strategies, watching them play out, and getting feedback on them. The tools to compete are freely available. I’ve described them on this blog. Use them and you will win, because there is nothing so inevitable in politics, as in business, as hubris creating opportunities for new competitors.
Elon Musk isn’t God. He won’t be able to make himself God. He will always be just a human being, like you are. He can be taken down. He is doing it to himself right now.
