One of the most disturbing things to emerge from the current era is the ascendancy of the tech broligarchs. Or whatever they're called these days. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg. Peter Thiel. Marc Andreessen. Larry Ellison. Alex Karp.
Maybe they've always been awful, but most of them used to at least give some lipservice to making the world a better place for someone other then themselves. Alas, somewhere along the line they all figured out that the bucks don't stop here. The bucks, in fact, never stop. And the thing about the bucks is, once you accrue a goodly enough of them, you realize you never have enough. And you never, ever, ever in a kabillion years want them to stop pouring into your coffers.
Being a millionaire used to be a big deal. Then it was being a one-digit billionaire. Of course, that soon became nothing much. And two-digit billionaire was an equal yawner. Three-digit billionaire-ing - $100B and above - and now you're talking. And all of a sudden we're in the countdown for when Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire. Which will no doubt set off a what's he got that I don't? rapacity spree among those left behind, nursing their $100's of billions and their grievances.
These guys aren't stupid, and they naturally realized that money isn't just homes everywhere, private submarines, super yachts with helipads, $5M engagement rings, $50M weddings, $100M bunkers, et every bit of cetera the mind can imagine. Money, they all recognized, is also power. And while once it may have been fine to use that power for some sort of benefit for humankind (c.f., Bill Gates' efforts to eradicate malaria), do-gooding is really nothing more than a sort of an amuse bouche for the real meal. Which is expanding and defending your unimaginable (to us plebs, anyway) wealth. And what better way to defend that wealth than to make sure that the government gets to take as small a bite out of it as possible.
So let's make sure our tax rates approach as near to zero as possible, that none of "our" loopholes are closed, that regulations that might actually help the little guy but may come at a cost to the poor little old big guys are eliminated. (C.f., decimation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.)
No wonder they're all so gungho on AI. After all, if you can replace all those pesky, squawky humans with AI and robotics, there's more money to be made. (That is, I guess, until there are very few human beings left who can afford to buy any of the goods and services that the tech bros are producing.)
Sigh.
Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp sees a real upside to all the coming disruption. And that upside will benefit the Republican party. Not coincidentally, the party with all the power and the one most likely to enable a full hands-off-the-money policy when it comes to taxing the tech broligarchs and their companies.
Last month, in a CNBC interview to discuss how Palantir's AI system is being used by the military for target selection - and we've seen just how foolproof AI technology is when it comes to say, selecting an Iranian girls' school for destruction - Alex Karp opined on how AI's disruption will target women's work:
“The one thing that I think that even now is underestimated by all actors in industry … is how disruptive these technologies are,” Karp said. “If you are going to disrupt the economic and therefore political power significantly of one party’s base – highly educated, often female voters who vote mostly Democrat, and military and working-class people who do not feel supported – and you believe that that’s going to work out politically, you’re in an insane asylum.”
He added: “Like … this technology disrupts humanities-trained – largely Democratic – voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters. These disruptions are going to disrupt every aspect of our society.” (Source: NY Times)
Swell. All those girly-girl history majors who know how to think, write, analyze, and other white-collarly things. And who support reproductive rights, social justice, diversity and equity, gay marriage, environmental concerns, universal healthcare - and vote accordingly. They'll see their economic, social, and political power eclipsed by swing-a-hammer white guys driving F150s to the voting booth to cast their voter-ID'd ballot for Barron Trump. And maybe even for an initiative to repeal the 19th amendment and send us latter-day suffragettes packing.
But, but, but, what happens next? Having gutted the ranks of those we used to call "knowledge workers," isn't AI going to go after the blue collar guys, too? After all, AI/robotics has done away with millions of manufacturing jobs, and it's going to be gunning for everything else humans used to do as well. Who'll be calling a plumber when your really smart toilet can unclog itself? Who'll need a roofer when the prefab new roof is dropped into place via drown, and secured via robots?
It's not clear that Karp is advocating for all this disruption. He's just saying it's going to happen. But it's certainly no secret that many of the tech broligarchs don't believe in democracy at all, at all. They view it as an encroachment on their freedom, i.e., the ability to endlessly accumulate.
One of my big questions about AI is just what do the broligarchs and their political henchmen think that people are going to do for work if there are no jobs?
Easy enough to see a return to a medieval society: nobles at the top, small class of supporting professionals and artisans, and a mass of peasants living in hovels. One shirt to last a lifetime, a diet of cheap foods designed to put us out of our misery young. And unlike our ancestors, who had to rely on storytelling and a flute made out of a dried reed for entertainment, we'll get 24/7 infotainment and rot piped in to our hovels to keep us from noticing that those damned rich just keep getting richer.
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