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If you had to summarize Silicon Valley's dominant ideology in a single anecdote , you might start by turning to Mark Zuckerberg, who, some twenty years ago, sat in the blue light of his computer talking to a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, was delivering and delivering had potential. Get access to lots of personal information about fellow students:
Zuckerberg: Yes, if you need information about someone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have more than 4,000 emails, photos, addresses and social networks
Friend: What? How do you deal with that?
Zuckerberg: People just shipped it.
Zuckerberg: I don't know why.
Zuckerberg: “You trust me”
Zuckerberg: Nonsense.
That conversation, later revealed in leaked chat logs, was quickly followed by another that was equally candid, if more polite. At a famous birthday party in 2007, Zuckerberg first met Sheryl Sandberg, his future COO, who, together with Zuckerberg, built the platform into a digital imperial superpower. Zuckerberg, who promoted the slogan "business before land" in Facebook's early days, told Sandberg that he wanted every American with an Internet connection to have a Facebook account. For Sandberg, who once told a colleague that she was “put on this planet to build organizations,” this proved to be the perfect job.
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Facebook (now known as Meta) has become the poster child for everything that is wrong with Silicon Valley. Its selfish role in spreading global disinformation represents an ongoing crisis. Recall also the company's secret sentiment manipulation experiment in 2012, which aimed to intentionally change what users saw in their news feed to measure how powerful Facebook was affecting people's emotional states without their knowledge. Or his involvement in inciting genocide in Myanmar in 2017. Or his use as a club to plan and carry out the January 6, 2021 uprising. (In the early days of Facebook, Zuckerberg referred to "revolutions" as his interests. That was about One time he printed a business card that said "I'm CEO, you bitch .")
However, the way Facebook does business remains the norm for the tech industry as a whole, even as other social platforms (TikTok) and technological developments (artificial intelligence) overtake Facebook in cultural prominence.
To worship on a giant altar and convince yourself that you should be the one making historic decisions on behalf of the citizens of the world who did not elect you and may not share your values or lack values, you must do so without many mistakes, including modesty and nuances. Many Silicon Valley giants have repeatedly made similar concessions. YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by Meta), and Twitter (which Elon Musk insists on calling X) have done as much damage to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook. Given the way generative AI is currently developing in Silicon Valley, we must be prepared for this damage to increase many times over in the next few years.
The behavior of these companies and those who run them is often hypocritical, greedy and status-obsessed. But behind this corruption lies something far more dangerous – a clear and coherent ideology that is rarely condemned for what it is: an authoritarian technocracy. As Silicon Valley's most powerful companies have matured, this ideology has become louder, more arrogant, more delusional, and more aggressive in the face of mounting criticism.
The new technocrats ostensibly use language that expresses the values of the Enlightenment - reason, progress and freedom - but in reality they are leading an anti-democratic, illiberal movement. Many of them declare their unconditional support for freedom of expression, but retaliate against those who say things they don't like. They tend to hold eccentric beliefs: any kind of technological progress is inherently and unconditionally good; that you should always build it just because you can; that the unimpeded flow of information is of the utmost value, regardless of the quality of the information; Data protection is an old concept; That we should welcome the day when artificial intelligence surpasses our own. Above all, let their power be unlimited. Systems they have built or are working to build – to redesign communications, restore human social networks, bring artificial intelligence into everyday life, and so on. - Imposing these beliefs on a population that is neither consulted nor generally informed in any meaningful way. All this and they are still trying to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that they are the underdog.
Comparisons between Silicon Valley and Wall Street or Washington, DC are common, and you can see why: They are all centers of power and attract people whose ambitions often exceed their humanity. But Silicon Valley's influence extends far beyond that of Wall Street and Washington. It is a more profound reshaping of society than any other center of power ever, perhaps since the New Deal. Many Americans are (rightly) concerned about growing authoritarianism among MAGA Republicans, but they risk overlooking another rising force of illiberal forces: the ultra-powerful, crisis-prone tech leaders.
The Shakespearean drama , shown at OpenAI late last year, shows how much Facebook's worst mentality - "move fast and break things" - has been internalized and glorified in Silicon Valley. OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization with the goal of bringing artificial general intelligence to the world in a way that serves the public interest. At the heart of its creation was the belief that technology was too powerful and too dangerous to be developed solely for commercial purposes.
But in 2019, as the technology began to amaze even those who worked on it with the speed of its development, the company added a trading division to raise more capital. Microsoft initially invested a billion dollars, then several billion more. Then last fall, the company's CEO Sam Altman was fired and then quickly rehired, a strong performance that signaled an erosion of OpenAI's previous protections against the company's dominance in the country. Those calling for Altman's resignation felt he was too focused on the pace of development rather than security. But Microsoft's response — an offer to bring in Altman and someone else from OpenAI to rebuild its team there — sparked a hate game that led to Altman being rehired. The whole incident was complex, and Altman may have been the right man for the job, but the message was clear: the desire for size and profit far outweighed considerations of safety and public responsibility.
Silicon Valley continues to attract large numbers of highly talented people who are committed to doing good and striving to achieve the best possible version of a more connected, data-rich global society. Even the most innocuous companies have developed great tools. But these tools are also, by and large, systems of manipulation and control. They promise community but sow division; He pretends to stand for the truth but spreads lies; They cloak themselves in concepts like empowerment and freedom, but at the same time constantly monitor us. As a rule, those values that take away our freedom of action and enslave us to our news triumph.
The theoretical promise of artificial intelligence is as promising as the promise once offered by social networks and as dazzling as the design of the most fanatical architect. AI can already cure many diseases. Science can truly transform and unlock lost knowledge. Except that Silicon Valley, controlled by the worst technocratic impulses, follows the model of massive expansion and monopolization of the social network. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and other companies at the forefront of AI development do not focus on areas of greatest social or cognitive need, and certainly do not operate with any degree of transparency or discretion. Instead, they are in a race for faster growth and maximum profits.
None of this would be possible without the technocratic philosophy behind determinism, the idea that if you can create something new, you should build it. “I think in a well-functioning world, this should be a government project,” Altman told my colleague Ross Andersen last year, referring to OpenAI’s efforts to develop artificial general intelligence. But Altman still plans to build it himself. Or as Zuckerberg told the New Yorker years ago, "Isn't it inevitable that a large social network of people will emerge?"...If we don't do it, someone else will.
Technocracy first emerged as a political ideology after World War I among a small group of scientists and engineers in New York City who wanted to create a new social structure to replace representative democracy by putting a technological elite in charge. Although their movement was a political failure (people supported President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal), it was more intellectually successful and fell into the zeitgeist with modernism in art and literature, which shared some of its values. American poet Ezra Pound’s modernist slogan “Make it new” could easily serve as a slogan for technocrats. There was a parallel movement to that of the Italian Futurists, led by figures such as the poet FT Marinetti, who used aphorisms such as “Walk, do not form” and “Create, do not contemplate”.
The philosophy of both the technocrats and the futurists was a work in itself. “We are not content to walk through a park surrounded by dark cypresses and lean over mossy ruins and monuments,” Marinetti said in a 1929 speech. “We believe that the only tradition worthy of Italy is never to have one.” The leading Futurists turned their enthusiasm for technology, action and speed to fascism. Marinetti followed his Futurist Manifesto (1909) with his Fascist Manifesto (1919). His friend Pound was fascinated by Benito Mussolini, so he cooperated with his regime in broadcasting a radio program in which the poet promoted fascism, expressed his admiration for the book Mein Kampf, and praised Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. The evolution from futurism to fascism was not inevitable - many of Pound's friends began to fear him or believe he had gone mad - but it shows how, in times of social upheaval, a cultural movement emerged based on a radical rejection of tradition and History based and with a touch of discontent could become a political ideology.
In October, venture capitalist and technocrat Marc Andreessen posted on his company's website a stream-of-consciousness document he called the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto," a 5,000-word ideological cocktail eerily reminiscent of, and particularly praising, the Italian Futurists. Like Marinetti. In addition to being one of Silicon Valley's most influential billionaire investors, Andreessen is known for his sleek, striking appearance, and despite the call for optimism in the headline, the article seems to be driven in part by his dissatisfaction with the technologies he and his own Use your partner to be motivated. His ancestors “no longer celebrated properly.” It is an insightful document that reflects the worldview that he and his fellow technocrats hold.
Andreessen writes that there are “no hardware problems,” including technology-related ones, that “cannot be solved with new technology.” He writes that technology must not only constantly evolve, but also constantly accelerate its progress "to ensure that the spiral of technological capital continues forever." He condemns what he calls anti-technology campaigns, with names like “Technoethics” and “existential risk”.
Or consider what one might call the Apostles' Creed for his nascent political movement:
We believe that we need to combine intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop and drive it to infinity...We believe in adventure. Embark on a hero's journey, rebel against the status quo, map uncharted territories, defeat dragons and return the spoils to our society...
We believe in nature, but we also believe in the triumph of nature. We are not primitives afraid of lightning. We are top predators. The lightning works to our advantage.
Andreessen cites several “saints” of his movement, including Marinetti. He quotes the Futurist Manifesto and replaces Marinetti's "poetry" with "technology":
Beauty only exists in battle. There is no masterpiece that does not have an aggressive character. Technology must become a brutal assault on the forces of the unknown to force them into submission to humans.
To be clear: Andreessen's manifesto is not a fascist document, it is an extremist document. He takes a sensible position—that technology in general has vastly improved human life—and then distorts that position by reaching the absurd conclusion that any attempt to limit technological development, regardless of the circumstances, is objectionable. This position, taken without irony, makes sense only as a religious belief and in practice only serves to absolve him and other Silicon Valley giants of any moral or civic duty to do anything other than create new things that enrich them. , regardless. Social costs or history. Andreessen also lists a list of enemies and “zombie ideas” he urges his followers to combat, including “institutions” and “traditions.”
“Our enemy,” writes Andreessen, “is the expert, the authority, the one with a comprehensive worldview, who loves abstract theories, fanciful beliefs and social engineering, who is disconnected from the real world, illusory, random and irresponsible and…” Who does God play in life? . . . Complete isolation of consequences.
The irony is that this description fits Andreessen and other Silicon Valley elites very well. The world they have created over the last two decades is undoubtedly a world of ruthless social engineering that has nothing to do with its architects, who impose their abstract theories and fanciful beliefs on all of us.
Some of the individual principles that Andreessen puts forward in his opinion are trivial. But his general extremism should give pause given his position and power. It's clear that key figures in Silicon Valley, including Musk, have embraced illiberal causes in recent years. In 2020, Donald Trump's share of the vote in Silicon Valley was 23% - a small percentage, but higher than the 20% he received in 2016.
Currently, the main risks of authoritarian technocracy are not political, at least not in the traditional sense. However, a privileged few exercise a degree of authoritarian control to set the cultural rules and norms of the digital world, which can be as powerful as political power.
In his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the country of the dangers of the rise of technocracy. “If we respect scientific research and discovery, as we should,” he said, “we must also be prepared for the equal and opposite risk that state policy itself becomes a prisoner of science and technology.” The state's job exists in shaping, balancing and integrating these and other new and old forces into the principles of our democratic system, which always strives to achieve the highest goals of our free society.
Eight years later, the country's first computers were connected to the ARPANET, the precursor to the World Wide Web, which became generally available in 1993. Back then, Silicon Valley was seen as a utopia for ambitious capitalists and optimistic inventors with original ideas who wanted to change the world. , unhindered by bureaucracy and tradition and at the speed of the Internet (at the time 14.4 kilobits per second). This culture had its own flaws from the start, but was also unique in American ingenuity and led to the creation of transformative and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful devices and software.
When it comes to technology regulation, I've long been on Andreessen's side. I believed that the social network could remain a pure good and that, given enough time, the values that best served the public interest would naturally prevail. I rejected the idea of regulating the social network also because I was not convinced (and still am not convinced) that the government could do it without causing harm (the European regulatory model that calls laws like SO) . the right and we must forget that it contradicts the protection of freedom of the press in America and is a threat to the public's right to know). I prefer to see market competition as a driving force for technological progress and the improvement of society.
However, in recent years it has become clear that regulation is needed, especially as the growth of technocracy proves that Silicon Valley executives will not simply act in the best interests of society. There is much to be done to protect children from the dangers of social networks, destroy monopolies and oligopolies that harm society, and much more. At the same time, I believe that organization alone will not be enough to wage an effective fight against the cultural decay promoted by the new technocrats.
Universities must regain their leadership in developing technologies that transform the world for the benefit of humanity. (Harvard, Stanford and MIT could invest in forming a consortium for such an effort - their combined capital is estimated at about $110 billion.)
Individuals must also pave the way forward. You probably won't be able to completely get rid of social networking or workplace monitoring software, and you probably won't even want to get rid of these things. But defining ideals has extraordinary power, and we can all start doing it ourselves; To our true friends; For our schools; For our temples. It would be useful to develop more complex common standards for discussing and making decisions about how we use invasive technologies in our interpersonal relationships and within our communities. This includes challenging existing norms regarding the use of apps and YouTube in the classroom, the prevalence of smartphones in the hands of teenagers, and the widespread neglect of personal life. Such efforts must be led by people who believe we all deserve better.
Our children are not data sets waiting to be quantified, tracked and sold. Our intellectual products are not just a textbook on artificial intelligence used for stalking and stealing. Our lives are not meant to be improved with the help of a screen, but to be lived – in all our haphazard, tree-climbing, night-swimming, adventurous glory. We all become the best versions of ourselves when we don't tweet, like, and scroll, swipe, scroll.
Technocrats are right that technology is the key to improving the world. But we must first describe the world as we want to see it: the problems that we want to solve in a way that serves the common good and in accordance with the values and rights that guarantee human dignity, equality, freedom and strengthen the sanctity of private life and health happiness. We need the leaders of the institutions we represent – large and small – to support technology in ways that benefit individuals and society, not just enrich technocrats.
We don't have to live in a world created by new technocrats. We do not have to accept their growing project to rob humanity and analyze intellectual data. Each of us has power.
There is no longer an option to “build it because we can.” No more algorithm powerhouses. There is no longer any infrastructure designed to make people less influential, more powerful – and more controlled. Every day we vote with our interest; It has value and is strongly aimed at those who want to use it against us to achieve their political interests and goals. Don't leave her.
This article appeared in the March 2024 print edition under the title “Despotes of Silicon Valley.”
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