In the grand theatre of modern technological ambition, Silicon Valley increasingly resembles a solution in frantic pursuit of a problem. Quantum computing is a case in point: the race to break RSA encryption is a global sprint that all seems a bit unnecessary. RSA may not be perfect, but it is functional. What drives the frenzy is not a sincere need for improvement, but dread: the fear that someone else will break it first. This is not how I feel innovation and the future of human progress ought to be wrought; it’s merely a spiral of anxiety.
Meanwhile, AI is hungrily being gobbled up by entities like Walmart and Amazon. These institutions already monopolize consumer purchases. They have all of the money and all of the control: how exactly is AI going to change their game? Next they will optimize logistics, extract marginal gains in attention economies, and smooth the inefficiencies of already-absolute power. The result? They will eliminate whatever friction remains in their pursuit of perfectly frictionless consumerism.
We’ve abandoned even the fiction that the Big Tech is about a better vision for humanity, a better world. They don’t even bother with the rhetoric any more. The human condition may not be improved, but it may be slightly more convenient. The terms of the future will not be dictated not by the betterment of humanity, but by what already powerful actors fear losing.