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The bug in Sam Altman’s industrial revolution We are losing our grip on material reality

Can we escape the world of bits? Patrick T. Fallon/AFP Getty Images

Can we escape the world of bits? Patrick T. Fallon/AFP Getty Images


March 21, 2024   6 mins

It has been an intense few months for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Having survived an attempted coup, he is now looking to accelerate his artificial intelligence revolution. His next step is to raise $7 trillion in investment capital to build the chip factories needed to power the next wave of major advances. Should Altman get anywhere close to raising this astronomical sum, and creating the physical and energy infrastructure he envisions, it would amount to nothing less than a private, Silicon Valley-based, one-man industrial revolution.

Such grandiose schemes are nothing new in the tech world: after all, Elon Musk has dreamed of colonising Mars, while Peter Thiel is said to aspire to immortality. But what is significant about Altman’s trillion-dollar moonshot is that it would put him in competition with another powerful actor: the United States government. Under both Trump and Biden, the White House has pursued a policy of re-industrialisation.

For ultimately, Altman’s plans may be compared to the bipartisan CHIPs Act in their ambition. And if successful, they would address many of the underlying strategic issues that the US government is seeking to resolve, such as the danger of falling behind China in the long-term race for AI and manufacturing supremacy, or the risk posed by a microchip shortage in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Indeed, Altman is requesting Washington’s backing for his venture, most probably in anticipation of the major national security and legal antitrust objections that his gambit is likely to raise. (He is also seeking funds from foreign governments such as the UAE.)

Yet despite the apparent convergence in goals between Washington and OpenAI, there is, in fact, a stark choice to be made between them. As Thiel said, there is a great difference between progress in the world of bits and progress in the world of atoms. The problem is that while American society has had no problem churning out “innovations” of an increasingly dubious social utility in the former, it has struggled to produce any comparable achievements in the latter. While an endless stream of apps and content has inundated consumers since the advent of the Web 2.0, the material foundations of America — its electrical grid, basic infrastructure, industrial hardware, national defence base, and more generally, its collective capacity to produce material goods — has declined into obsolesce. Boeing’s string of engineering failures is just the latest example. Or, as Thiel put it a decade ago: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

And while OpenAI’s generative AI products, from ChatGPT to Sora, might appear more impressive than a 140-character tweet, they carry the same fundamental premise: large-scale innovation in the West is now something that mostly takes place in a non-corporeal universe mediated by screens. Contrary to futurist discourse promising science fiction-like visions of a radically more expansive and technically advanced built environment, Silicon Valley has instead delivered infinite arrays of two-dimensional spectacle combined with total civilisational stagnation in the crumbling three-dimensional world. Indeed, its technologies have had the effect of warping and undermining society’s shared notions of reality. And herein lies the problem with the prospect of a new industrial revolution led by Altman and his fellow travellers: it threatens to supercharge the explosion of content in the world of bits, while the accompanying benefits in the world of atoms remain vague to non-existent.

At this point, Americans must ask themselves, to what ends should America’s vast capital and energy resources be directed? Should they be devoted to perpetuating the existing bit-centred economy, which has made Americans stupider and more addicted to short-term stimulus? Or should they be marshalled toward the construction of a new paradigm, one where an atom-centred American civilisation is once again engaged in the making and building of things in the physical realm?

The present status quo goes by many names: the “information age”, “the knowledge economy”, “the Californian Ideology”, “network society”, etc. These slogans, most of which were popularised in the Nineties, reflected the late 20th-century transition from an industrial economy to a post-industrial one grounded in non-material commodities such as digital software, financial products, media franchises, and other forms of intellectual property. In this view, the old worlds of industry and mass manufacturing could safely be relegated to developing economies, while developed ones fully immersed themselves in the more advanced and enlightened forms of production, that of information, ever more abstracted from actual people and places.

The elite of this economy is, of course, Silicon Valley, which not only gave us the commercial internet, social media, smartphones and generative AI applications — but also the cultural values that came with them. The promise underlying them had always been to bring the world closer together and to allow humanity to be freer and more creative than ever before. The ethos propounded by Altman, Musk and others at OpenAI’s founding in 2015 carried many of the same liberatory and messianic undertones.

“The monumental computing power Altman dreams of likely wouldn’t be used to build anything real.”

Yet rather than creating dialogue, digital echo chambers have left society more fragmented than ever before. Humans, especially young people, have become more depressed and socially atomised due to their dependence on screens, while nearly every domain of public life, from politics to culture and artistic self-expression, is now governed by the law of the algorithm. What’s more, the latest advances in AI technology have rendered many “knowledge economy” professions, including lawyers, creative professionals, financial analysts, and software developers vulnerable to displacement by automated counterparts. (The irony is that blue-collar workers may end up suffering the least from AI replacement.)

In other words, the commanding heights of the knowledge economy are, for the first time, directly endangered by the fruits of their own celebrated innovations, namely Artificial Intelligence. Understood in this context, the trajectory of re-industrialisation under Altman would represent the culmination of these post-material and post-human currents. The monumental computing power he dreams of likely wouldn’t be used to build anything real, like in the first Industrial Revolution, but would rather be deployed toward the further subsuming of human society into the endless virtual realities.

The scale of this human-AI “merge” would not just extend to jobs but to some of the most intimately human roles: AI friends, AI lovers, AI philosophers, and eventually AI gods and godheads. One of the most popular memes in “accelerationist” circles is of a future civilisation of self-replicating AIs harvesting energy through a web of Dyson Spheres in space. It is telling because there are no humans left — their minds presumably having been merged with the singularity — and consciousness itself has been entirely disembodied. This is not a sinister conspiracy, but a vision openly aspired to by many in Silicon Valley — and one that Altman’s microchip industrial complex would surely help to realise.

But there is another, competing vision of American re-industrialisation, which can be found on both sides of the political aisle. Donald Trump has spoken of raising magnificent new “Freedom Cities” out of the American wilderness, while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called for the building of “a clean-energy manufacturing ecosystem rooted in supply chains here in North America”. Whether distilled through Right-wing populist MAGA-ism or the progressive industrial policies of Bidenomics, the common thrust of this emerging paradigm has been to reconstruct the 20th-century industrial economy of atoms for the 21st century, and to recover the strategic technological and manufacturing edge that was squandered to China after the Cold War. These precepts would provide a much firmer and saner basis for launching an industrial renaissance than Altman’s bit-centric blueprint.

This is not to say that there is no place for AI in this version of industrial renewal. Rather, a properly materialist approach would take a discerning and qualified approach to AI that channels its awesome powers toward productive uses in the real economy rather than to the diversionary “attention economy”. It could be used to enhance and synthesise everything from research-and-development, next-generation manufacturing and construction to advanced energy and resource extraction methods. Under this new paradigm, America’s decaying cities would be transformed into a dramatically more abundant material and built environment, closer to what science fiction has imagined.

The reality is far different. For instance, it is no surprise that tech capitals such as San Francisco and Palo Alto are some of the most unyielding bastions of Nimby-ism in the country, embodying the engrained post-materialist instincts of the tech world to a tee. Perhaps AI could be employed to streamline the cumbersome bureaucratic approval processes that stand in the way of new construction in these places.

But how can we hope to get there? More than a century ago, the German polymath Oswald Spengler dedicated his magnum opus, The Decline of the West, to charting the fall of “Faustian Man”, who, he argued, had dominated the Western imagination for centuries, and whose distinguishing mark was the perpetual conquest of space. It is fairer to say, however, that the Faustian spirit didn’t so much vanish as migrate from the West to the East. For in China today, the ruling party has presided over a titanic effort at reshaping physical space: entire metropolises have been ordered into existence while the most advanced industrial and computer technologies are being pioneered at a rate that puts the West to shame. Meanwhile, the party-state commands its tech sector to cut down on video games and social media fadsthe precise opposite, in other words, of what goes on in America.

The choice is thus between post-Faustian man, embodied by Sam Altman and his apostles, who will complete the mind’s retreat into the realm of bits; and what may be called “Neo-Faustian man”, illustrated by Xi Jinping and China’s leadership, who is most intent on preserving, in the classical sense, human mastery over the world of atoms. As America enters a new industrial epoch, its citizens can only hope for their own “Neo-Faustian” genius, albeit one who is attuned to the values and best traditions of the West. Or else, they risk seeing material reality itself slip from their fingers — forever.


Michael Cuenco is a writer on policy and politics. He is Associate Editor at American Affairs.
1TrueCuencoism

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Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
8 months ago

There are many, many things to contest in this article, but I will pick on this one

“…For in China today, the ruling party has presided over a titanic effort at reshaping physical space: entire metropolises have been ordered into existence while the most advanced industrial and computer technologies are being pioneered at a rate that puts the West to shame…”

This is simply not true. This is a line I would have bought into two or three ago, but the deeper you look, the more you realise: China’s technology lags the west by quite a bit (with odd areas at the leading edge, and they look impressive but they are in truth small beer). China does well across the lower and middle tiers of commercial engineering technologies, as long as they have unfettered inbound access to the western tech and engineering ecosystems, and outbound access to western markets to sell into. Denied any part of that pipeline, they are in big trouble.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
8 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

I’m sure you are right about the second half of that quote, but surely the first half is indisputable.

I thought that’s what the article was saying. The author assumed Altman AI will be all about magnifying the dreadful impact of social media, while what we need is technology to help transform manufacturing and energy production. The Chinese have certainly transformed their society over a staggeringly short period, in historical terms, by using (stolen) western IP to build an industrial base.

Our future is now much more in the hands of the Altmans, Thiels, Musks, Zuckerbergs, Gates et al, than it is in the Bidens or Sunaks. The article made too many lazy assumptions for me about what Altman actually wants to do with his $7T.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
8 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

It is clear what the ‘Altmans, Thiels, Musks, Zuckerbergs, Gates’ are ultimately looking for, in some cases avowedly so: indefinite life extension.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
8 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Yes. And the narcissism of such an ambition does not bode well for the rest of us.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Yes, people worry about the 1% richest. We’re talking here about 5 or so corporations 0.000000001% controlling us in the west. Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis calls it ‘technofeudalism.’

Dave Weeden
Dave Weeden
8 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Re your last paragraph: surely it’s true of the past that tech innovators shaped the world more than politicians. The course of the 20th century owes more to high explosives (Alfred Nobel), powered flight (originally the Wright brothers), the internal combustion engine and mass production (Henry Ford), and antibiotics (Fleming) than to even Lenin or Churchill.
I think the article is broadly right in that bit tech is not shaping the world in the way that atomic tech (or real-world tech) shaped it from the late C18 to circa 1990, but then again politicians are also weaker. I’m reading a book called “Europe’s Leadership Famine” by Tom Gallagher which is a collection of potted biographies of the politicians who created or influenced what is now the EU, and how many of them were seeking a politics outside the nation state, but ironically (perhaps) weakening the nation state has weakened all elected politicians too. (I’m not putting this at all well, but don’t have the time to put it better.)
The problem with China, it seems to me, is that the country has a pretty loose relationship with honest reporting, and it’s actually very hard to tell how much Chinese society has changed. The Chinese government seems so committed to suppressing criticism (there was an Unherd piece on this only yesterday), that I’m not even sure that officials or the CCP really knows what’s going on in the country. (I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that many of their advancements only happened on government reports and spreadsheets.)

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
8 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

I noticed that as well. The author is probably referring to articles like this one.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/china-leading-us-in-technology-race-in-all-but-a-few-fields-thinktank-finds
The key element that’s left out is that in chip manufacturing technology, considered by many to be the decisive area in the technology arms race, the Chinese are still behind, and the US is trying to keep it that way through tech sanctions. The most advanced chips can only be made with technology controlled by the US, Japan, and the Netherlands, and both have joined the American tech sanctions. Most of the other technological and industrial gaps can be closed with enough political will and with the proper economic and industrial policies. China’s rise occurred against a backdrop of a passive USA that wasn’t paying much attention to China and was focused elsewhere. Whether China can continue to have success against a USA whose strategic focus is aimed almost exclusively at them remains to be seen.
The first line of the quote is rather humorous to me, because a lot of those new metropolises they ordered into existence simply stand empty today because they weren’t actually necessary.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/chinese-ghost-cities
Such waste is an inevitable result of command economies. Sooner or later, it will cost them.

Saul D
Saul D
8 months ago

The world of bits has consumed large parts of the world of atoms, replacing the physical with the virtual – music, photo, film, books, newspapers, toys, sports, documents, forms, art, sex, meetings/travel.
The physical we have – food, hugs, walks, journeys, clothes, warmth, comfort, health, life – is fixing us in place. No need to go to the pub with WhatsApp or Instagram, to the office with Zoom or Teams, to the shops with Amazon, or to restaurants with Deliveroo, Relationships start on Tindr, not some shared activity with a stranger. Physical activity now means the loneliness of a gym or a pool. A hobby is something you do at home on your own.
I think there’s a reaction coming. Outside of commuting, I notice phones are now often hidden away when out and in company. I see more walkers and cyclists, often in groups. There are more people making things. Board-game cafes for more casual meets. I think we’re realising we can choose, and atoms are more cuddly than bits.

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
8 months ago
Reply to  Saul D

Bits are useful like a hammer is useful: I’ve been using them since the 60’s as a tool to manipulate atoms, i.e. to make better stuff. They can also be used to manipulate immaterial ideas but beware, ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing’.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
8 months ago
Reply to  Saul D

Just to take one example from your list: physical art will never be overtaken by the digital realm. The existence in the world of a painting or sculpture, made using materials and by human hand, eye, brain and soul will continue to resonate via the physical act of viewing in a way that digital art can never hope to emulate.

N T
N T
8 months ago

wow. this essay started so promisingly, and then quit on itself. it is as if the writer was just trying to draw us all in, before going on a rant about the status quo.
if you are going to compare altman to other visionaries, who have become larger-than-life, and have accomplished great things, why not consider the possibility that altman might be in this rarified group, and if so, where might he be headed? what of the conflict with musk?

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
8 months ago

Had an interesting dream last night. Got a chance to chat with my creators: some kind of software development firm on the West Coast, probably in Seattle. Or maybe that was just the way my mind represented it. We talked about what, exactly, they were trying to accomplish with this simulation they were running, and what my role in it was, and whether they themselves might also be a simulation; I suspect I wasn’t the first of their characters to suggest this last possibility to them, given the equanimity with which they shrugged it off. So now I get to look forward to a day filled with metaphysical angst.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
8 months ago

Whether a software developer or an old man in the clouds, I suspect having a chat with one’s creator is a sobering experience however the mind represents it.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
8 months ago

Brilliant! Thanks

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
8 months ago

“Humans, especially young people, have become more depressed and socially atomised due to their dependence on screens,”
Correlation is not causation. Information technology–via its pervasive immediacy and efficiency–has exposed social fault lines that it did not cause. It began long before personal computers and smartphones.The current mental health crisis is rooted in the collapse of the family and in the widespread promulgation of false cultural “realities” through legacy non-digital institutions: academia, media, the psychological-therapeutic establishment, and government. Pair those with the loss of the ballast of traditional western spirtual institutions and you’ve the real source of the crisis.
Jeremiads about technology always assume singular, monolithic effects. The reality is instead an augmentation of selective forces. Well-adjusted and truly bright people employ each new digital tool to create and shape their individual real lives; those poor souls already broken or bent by non-digital influences are the ones becoming slaves to their screens and, ironically, know the least about how the technology they are addicted to even works. I’ve been fortunate to know hundreds of bright, well-adjusted young people who have extraordinary command of digital technology who also lead rich physical lives with abundant face-to-face social interaction, sports involvement, outdoor pastimes like hiking and biking, stable family relationships, and meaningful physical philanthropy.
Technology is not the force pushing all of humanity to a grim fate. It is, however, separating the sheep from the goats at unprecedented scale. It widens the Darwinian gap between those suited to adapt it to their benefit and those condemned to miss its benefits by virtue of their own pre-existing pathologic lack of adaptability. Mankind is now on the cusp of the resumption of history that was briefly interrupted by foolish notions that cultures could exist and thrive on a set of fantasies. Those hubristic notions, which caused our cultural mess, predate the digital advent. A sorting is afoot and woe to those who are unprepared.

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Thank You … very thought provoking … best comment today.

C Ross
C Ross
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Correlation is not (necessarily) causation….post hoc ergo propter hoc…so too the alleged collapse of the family and spiritual? I think you are seeking the phrase ‘necessary but not sufficient’ re technology and the other conditions you mention

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
8 months ago
Reply to  C Ross

The demographic data widely available on the deterioration of the nuclear family–let alone the extended one–demonstrates that it is anything but “alleged”. Combine that with the displacement of authority over children away from parents and toward the state and it becomes obvious that functional differences between a family 75 years ago and a family today are profound. The effective families that remain are the ones producing the kinds of well-adjusted young people I cited.

The changes in what can be called “spirituality” have been likewise monumental and widely measured. When it comes to religion I have, as a devout agnostic, no skin in the game; however, in Western societies, Christianity (for all its ills) served as a cultural constant for millennia but does so no longer. If I needed to hire a hundred reliable employees I’d dance with joy to have a pool of early 20th century Christians to draw from as opposed to the pink-haired, body-pierced, drug-addled, neurotic atheists that our secular society serves up now.

Rather than engage in the sophistry of point-making, my intention in my comments was to deflect the tendency for individuals to seize upon targets of blame outside their personal realms of agency. People actually do have the power to individually mitigate the hazards of technology but it is far less likely in the context of a dysfunctional family and society. It is too easy for parents who are derelict in the oversight of their children to blame “the screens” for problems that their children might be spared had the parents attended to their responsibilities.

The same is true of the state. The US Congress regularly trots the CEO’s of the social media tech giants in for hearings about the detriments of their products to young people. But it is merely performance art. Nothing is done to change the problem. And worse, the bureaucracy continues undermining the power of parents to exert agency over their children, which is precisely where the problem can be best addressed.

Churches have also failed in the one useful thing they once contributed to: instruction in personal responsibility, responsibility to community, and responsibility to family. I’ve no use for heaven or hell or ritual but a vicar who managed to impart to his congregants that laziness, dishonesty, and selfishness were sins did a service to society. Churches now only reinforce narcissistic self-obsession and moral relativism.

joe hardy
joe hardy
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

When the comments exceed the article, it makes the subscription worth every cent. Well said.

Abhi Garg
Abhi Garg
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

Some good points here.

Steven Howard
Steven Howard
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I think it’s both. It’s like with drugs. Healthy people don’t become drug addicts, you have to start out with some sort of mental or physical illness (at least the vast majority of the time). At the same time, that doesn’t mean that we should make heroin legal. However, within reason, it does imply that we should try and help the people who are consumed by screens (and heroin). To me that probably just means having a strong cultural understanding of the dangers of the internet/technology, the same way we have a cultural understanding of the dangers of drugs. There are people out there who refuse to drink or try drugs because they have a family history of drug abuse, and I think that’s a good thing, but that choice is only a result of a much stronger understanding of how drug abuse works.

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
8 months ago
Reply to  Steven Howard

Three quarters of a century’s worth of organized societal efforts to combat the availability of drugs, prevent their abuse, and treat the victims of abuse has met with little success. Deaths from opioids have never ben higher and some jurisdictions have given up and legalized the recreational use of some drugs. On what body of experience with any human behavioral dysfunction could a clear-eyed observer conclude that any of the therapeutic interventions that are endlessly touted actually work at any scale? Do you really have confidence that a “cultural understanding of the dangers of technology” will produce a better result than the miserable failure of our “cultural understanding of the dangers of drugs” or our cultural understanding of the causes of criminality or any other societal ill for which the therapeutic model has been deployed?

Steven Howard
Steven Howard
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

I would not say that these things do work at any scale, other than the individual scale, because everything you mentioned is true. However, I would say that if you have the will, the resources, and the knowledge, you can have a better chance at overcoming some of these things than in the past because of new knowledge (or even cultural understanding).

The fact that fentanyl is 100x more potent than heroin and far more deadly doesn’t mean that rehab doesn’t help. And maybe the increased efficacy of rehab is less than the increased addictiveness of fentanyl, and thus things are effectively worse than they were.

Although, is your point that society views rehab/therapy as the solution to a problem, and your view is that it would be better not to have the problem in the first place? I wouldn’t disagree with that point, but I’d still rather have a good band-aid in case the worst does happen.

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
8 months ago
Reply to  Steven Howard

I don’t disagree; however, the essence of my admonishment is that given the hazards of our world, it behooves anyone cognizant of them to seize any available personal agency to counteract them on behalf of themselves and their loved ones. It is absolutely essential that concerned people take individual responsibility because the clumsy, lumbering apparatus of statist “society” cannot be relied upon to fix these problems and, in too many cases, makes them worse. The therapeutic model is merely another example of the emperor’s nakedness: the failures are easy to see but seldom truthfully acknowledged. Yes, they are in fact just bandaids, and dirty ones at that.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

As you say, the well raised kids can prosper. Success is, to a huge extent, about starting with good parenting and a decent basic education.

However, optimistically, that’s probably about the top third. What about the rest? The dangers of mass manipulation can’t be ignored – it’s already happening.

Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo
8 months ago
Reply to  Deb Grant

The answer to your question is in your first two sentences. As far as ignoring the dangers of mass manipulation, no sensible person can miss what has been ongoing. The problem is that “the rest” are the ones who least accurately perceive the peril they are in. They transfer responsibility for their failures to everyone and everything except themselves. They wait like Godot for society to rescue them. But society has little prospect of ameliorating the plight of masses who are unwilling to seize whatever opportunity exists to take charge of their own destinies. Mass manipulation by media is nothing new. The Boomers stand out as a generation utterly defined by mass media: movies, television, music. The perspicacious among them took it all with a grain of salt; the larger number, who bought in totally to the ethos of the 60’s, are the sad lot who begat the chaos that now reigns.

RD STevens
RD STevens
8 months ago
Reply to  Ex Nihilo

“A sorting is afoot….” Now there is the impact of AI brilliantly captured in just 4 words

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
8 months ago

How is Silicon Valley transhumanism, virtualism, and immortality-seeking ”post-Faustian” ?
It’s intensely Faustian

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
8 months ago

The author’s vision of the future where our minds and consciousnesses will merge together, leaving our bodies behind I guess, reminds me of the Borg from “Star Trek: The Next Generation. Sometimes science fiction is scary.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
8 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I can’t think of a science fiction plot of recent vintage that offered much hope alongside the obligatory stark warnings, or painted an imaginary world that was more utopia than dystopia.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
8 months ago

A bit of an aside:
Why is it that these tech billionaires are given the status of genius/prophet? Is there something about Altman or Zucherberg, et al, that I should admire? Why are their rather silly philosophies treated as vital to our futures?
I’m no fan of Musk but he has improved our world with his satelites and rockets (we will need the lift capacity; our governments show no sign of helping in this); yet he’s the only one who is treated with contempt. The rest of them sold out and are now, blatantly, nothing but corporate party boys.
And why is Gates, the creepiest one of the lot, buying up so much farmland? What kind of nutty idea is he working on? That question is worthy of many UnHerd articles.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
8 months ago

The others are treated with contempt too–certainly by me on many days, to be honest.
It’s true that those with right-wing associations like Musk and Peter Thiel are treated with more contempt overall.
But here in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg and Gates are widely despised, as are some of the architects of Lord Google Inc.*
I understand the general charge of creepiness when it comes to Gates, but can you substantiate that characterization? I think his marriage to Melinda was the best thing that ever happened to him. He seems damn-near human to me now.
*Not that many opt out of their “platforms”

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
8 months ago

Wasn’t Musk one of the founders of Open AI ?

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
8 months ago

This board is a prime example of a middling article* redeemed by great comments!
*I shouldn’t have said it that way. Take 2: The article was worthwhile but the comments are on another level.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 months ago

Insightful and scary at the same time. When is social media going to be judged as anti-social?

I’m hoping we’ve reached peak content overload. Our kids have already been spoiled, and the Chinese know all their weaknesses through Tik Tok and other social media. It hasn’t done much for real destitution, or out-of-control addiction. Bring on the development of material goods.

However, re-industrialisation will only work in the areas where our kids want to work – easy, stress free and fewer hours. I hope it’s possible though. It would be a beautiful irony if harder physical work was valued more highly and commanded a better pay premium. That would do more for equality than the current lowest common denominator, race to the bottom of leftist politics today.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
8 months ago

I would back Sam Altman and Open AI anytime rather than trust Xi and his brutal buddies to take it forward.
Altman will/would them standing on the start line

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
8 months ago

I am not qualified to comment on AI or its future but it is possible to see the huge benefits AI could bring to so many areas of manufacturing and other areas of our lives.
The article seems negative, some optimism is needed, and for me Sam Altman and his team will get my vote over Xi and his brutal buddies in the totalitarian state we know as China

Abhi Garg
Abhi Garg
8 months ago

Apparently you’re “not qualified to comment on AI or its future” but then for some reason decided to comment. You’ve also managed to buy in to the scaremongering about China and Xi. If you think China and Xi are scarier than AI, then perhaps you are indeed not qualified to comment.

leonard o'reilly
leonard o'reilly
8 months ago

The discussion parade has long since past here, but the author makes a cogent case, in spite of the Mary Harrington-Ish “Faustian bargain”s and “the minds retreat into the realm of bits” musings.
Three quotes that would lend credence to the point:
”The computer age can be seen everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Robert Solow
”Panics do not destroy capital. They merely reveal the degree to which it has previously been destroyed by its deployment into hopelessly unproductive works.” J.S. Mill
”The improvement in living standards from 1870-1970 are unlikely to be repeated.” Robert Hordon
FWIW