It’s not AI’s enemies that are killing the boom. It’s its friends.
- AI leadership is obsessed with the idea of firing people, leaving them by the wayside of the future, all in the name of finding more money to “win” the race.
- AI leadership is obsessed with the raw materials of AI, like rare earths and energy. They think only of the short-term cost, nothing about the long-term cost.
- AI leadership is absurdly nationalistic. They’re competing against “China.” As if the Trump Administration represented freedom.
These obsessions have become pathological. Worse, they’re shared by nearly all AI leadership, even “good guys” like Jensen Huang of Nvidia. Psychologically, it’s beyond nihilism, it approaches sociopathy, acting as though other humans have no agency.
The fact is that AI techniques are incredibly useful. They can boost productivity to untold heights in every field. This has been proven. But if the only result of that is to throw people overboard, a deadly backlash is inevitable.
I’m not a Luddite. I dislike Luddites. But every corporate and political leader since Ludd has understood that the advance of technology must be sold as an opportunity, not a threat. I wrote about the John Henry story almost 15 years ago. I predicted “a move of economic activity from offices to university campuses, the replacement of management with innovation.”
What AI leaders are claiming is that their technology can replace innovation itself. This is extreme, even absurd, overselling. First because innovation must be tested before it’s released. Second, because education remains a human endeavor. I’ve covered education technology since my kids were born. They’re approaching middle age, and machines still can’t educate anybody without human help.
Change the Tune or Die
AI leaders can either change their tune or kill their industry.
People won’t accept being treated as slaves by technology. Elon Musk is not an Übermensch. I question whether he’s a mensch at all.
The benefits of AI must be shared, broadly. There are two ways in which this can happen.
Either AI leaders must gain a social conscience, or their profits must be seized by taxation. I prefer the former, although a growing proportion would support the latter, at confiscatory rates.
God knows there are good places to put the profits of AI. We can raise the standard of living. We can save the Earth, have peace, and educate everyone. AI multiplies human potential, but if that potential isn’t put to work on things that benefit everyone, what good is it?
To call Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or Sam Altman a humanist is to call Jeffrey Dahmer an epicurean. We can’t choose technology’s leaders, and God knows most have been deeply flawed. We can’t choose who gets rich from technology. To equate money with virtue is an obscenity beyond words.
It’s your choice, guys. The AI boom has gone on for three years now. If you want to head off a bust wider and deeper than what befell the dot-com era, get your heads out of your own asses and start serving humanity.
