Blood in the Machine
History, the New Big Tech Aristocracy…and the Future
Many of us have great concerns about how an AI-driven future will affect us. We also have anxieties about AI taking over our jobs and becoming uncontrollable. Concerns around how one can compete against machines, and whether or not the rapid advancement of AI will mean the end of humanity. All of these concerns are at the forefront of our lives in the 21st century. So how we effectively come to deal with them is one of the most challenging and complex questions we face going forward. However, since there can’t ever be any data about the future, we must turn to history for help. In formulating our own competitive strategies for future success. History, therefore, acts as the most reliable source of data to draw lessons from — to plot our course in navigating the future of our minuscule time on this earth.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing our human existence but to what degree is far from clear, and it will depend primarily on the choices we make.
The bedrock reality of the metaphysical world is that technology changes but human nature stays the same. And amid change, often enough it becomes difficult for us to see the forest from the trees. If nothing more, history serves as a guiding reference to learn from.
History also stands as a well-founded source that we can turn to for comparative analysis in the present about our future dilemmas. Most things happening in the now has happened before in history, or at minimum some variation.
More specifically, when examining periods of transformative technological change, the application of applied intelligence (ai) can act in framing historical content for robust analysis. Without the context of history, your analysis becomes only academic and useless for real-world application. And using statistical data analysis alone, in a mathematical modelling context just tells lies or the story you’re wanting to tell.
When you control the variables and decide which ones to leave in and take out, the model becomes flawed from the very beginning. The scoping of the events of history for comparative analysis can’t ever be controlled, you can’t choose the ones you like or the ones that work better toward your conclusion.
Context is vitally important for comparative analysis in connecting the dots. It leads to more steadfast, dependable, and empirically warrantable conclusions.
Let’s take the first Industrial Revolution period, which began to usher in technological equipment or industrial tools. In that period there is the story of the Luddites, (the Luddite period was between 1811–16). The historical accounts surrounding the Luddites have been one of purposeful manipulation of narratives, utilized to discredit and diminish a group of craftsmen at the time. The narratives surrounding the Luddites are stories about people resisting the inevitability of change. Casting them as a group of ignorant trades going around destroying equipment, who were anti-progress and wanting to remain in the past.
However, from an applied intelligence perspective, we must always read history with skepticism, and try to connect the dots instead of falling for stories.
Accordingly, let’s hear what author Brian Merchant says about the Luddite’s story. In his new book Blood in the Machine, Merchant argues that to understand the true history of the Luddites, it is important to first understand the historical context in which it happened. A time of industrial transformation and disruption and the impacts of the “sudden” introduction of automation technology.
Disruption in almost anything brings along stress and anxiety, and when things become desperate people react emotionally and outwardly. This happened in the past (i.e., the Luddites) and it is happening now, and so too will happen in the future. This is human nature — self-preservation which has been at the very heart of the conflict between business and labour for centuries.
In the end, however, things usually get sorted based on the interactions between the two. Through the negotiations and decisions people make about what they are willing to accept, the usefulness of technology introduced to them, and whether or not they will use it. So market forces usually become the decider when all is said and done.
Merchant relates the Luddite’s story to events occurring today:
“We are confronting a series of cases where technology is being used by tech companies and executives in different industries as a means of trying to drive down wages and worsen conditions so that the entrepreneurial class can make more money.”
Business owners then and now mainly see technology in a one-dimensional way — in their financial interests about how technology can reduce human resource costs, increase productivity, and increase profit. This view has not changed much over the centuries.
On the worker’s side, when they see owners looking at technology in that particular way, they naturally become threatened by technology. As a threat to their livelihoods causing job insecurity.
Both sides become more entrenched in their respective corners, and the irrationality of ideology sets in. Inherently both sides become singular in focus, believing that the problem is always with the other side.
As of today, nothing has effectively changed. When labour raises questions about AI in the workplace and Big Tech’s role in it, many of the same weaponized Luddite-type narratives begin to appear.
For example, billionaire Marc Andreessen, a couple of months back dropped a 5200-word ‘Techno Optimist Manifesto’ in which he ripped tech skeptics and what he called “lies” about what they feed society about technology. Through his unrestrained ego-driven propaganda filled with his manufactured self-serving lies. Andreessen tries to bully his way to silencing anyone who doesn’t come to kiss the Big Tech ring; and give praise to the New Tech Aristocracy.
The New York Times calls Andreessen’s piece “A Tech Overlord’s Horrifying, Silly Vision for Who Should Rule the World.” And goes on the say that this is nothing more than a grandiose manifesto for public consumption, unafflicted by self-doubt or denuded of self-interest.
Andreessen’s version of what the world should be is one where wealthy technologists are the leaders and make up the new New Tech Aristocracy. The self-declared keepers of the social order and social responsibility, trust and safety, and tech ethics. One where only they know what is best for us. These would-be corporate monarchs, having consolidated power even beyond their vast riches, have already persuaded much of the rest of the population to more or less go along with it.
So it is up to everyone not to acquiesce and accept the New Big Tech Aristocracy narratives which only serve their financial interests.
One of the narrative descriptions used against the Luddites was that they were bands of English workers who went around destroying machinery, especially in cotton and woollen mills. However, these groups were just standing up for their jobs and livelihoods, according to Merchant. They were not “resisting” the introduction of new machinery as the narratives have framed it to be.
Merchant informs us that the Luddites weren’t anti-machinery nor anti-technology, they welcomed both, many of them were machine experts themselves and were looking forward to using the new equipment.
However, factory owners, of course, had the one-dimensional thinking in effect — to reduce workers, increase production with machines and increase profit. Today it’s the same playbook. AI replacing humans with machines, lowering costs and increasing profits.
Today, it’s not the textile mills and factories but Big Tech that is pushing the narrative that replacing as many humans as possible will bring about business nirvana. Big Tech products replacing people is a narrative solely in the financial interest of Big Tech, so it would be wise to be skeptical and just don’t roll over to them.
History tells us that if we don’t change our thinking it will be difficult to make real change happen. Adherence to history is a significant factor in intelligent decision-making, particularly in avoiding repeating the same mistakes over and over. We need to find a productive middle ground between business and workers relative to the application of AI, for a smooth transition to the future of work.
Otherwise, technology will continue to evolve but society will not maximize its benefits and humanity will remain stagnant, if not even falling back.
As we go further into AI, we mustn’t allow Big Tech to dominate the conversation by setting the narrative. If we let that happen we are effectively stifling our individualism, creativity and innovation. Humanity suffers. Creating more problems to solve.
In the book, Power and Progress, Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity; the authors make one thing clear — it’s always been the individual decisions people make about technology that eventually decide the future. Not the specific technology per se. It also has been pointed out by the authors that it has largely been organized labour’s resistance to businesses overplaying their technology-efficiency hand, against workers, that has influenced policymakers in bringing about the many policy changes.
What is important to grasp here is that what we are seeing now — a few Big Tech companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon to name a few of the usual suspects) are becoming the arbiters of our lives. And if we do nothing about it, uncontrollable AI can become a reality and humanity can be under threat.
Again, without a meaningful adherence to history as a core knowledge source, your analysis will be incomplete and judgments error-filled.
Without a more real-world application process of thinking we leave ourselves vulnerable to what we don’t know and under the control of others. History can be your objective source of reasoning, seeing through all the bullshit, and connecting the dots to provide you with the best comparative analysis process to build your unique strategy for the future.
New jobs will be shed but new ones will be created, so personal responsibility will rest upon individuals to prepare themselves for the future of work. This requires one to develop a personal growth strategy relative to an AI-driven world. You can’t bury your head in the sand, nothing will change for you and it will only make things worse.
It is also not your employer’s responsibility either to look out for you, they have enough to worry about in remaining competitive in a transforming world. They need to build their own ai strategies too. Everyone wants to ride that prosperity curve!
In the 21st-century economy, the knowledge about the Luddites experience can be useful to us. Merchant also gives us relevant examples today across industries, from the art world where AI-generated imagery is decreasing artists’ and illustrators’ earning potential. Transportation, i.e., ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have hurt the taxi industry, but at the same time have ushered new levels of service and convenience that have been benefiting people.
In the entertainment industry, we’ve witnessed the writer’s strike recently where the main bone of contention was — that writers felt they were being marginalized by the studios using AI for writing, effectively reducing their earning potential.
Merchant puts it this way:
“If you look at the writers and the actors who are on strike today, they’re not worried that AI will write the next Martin Scorsese movie. They’re worried that it will churn out something deemed good enough by the studios, who will then send it to the writers for a rewrite fee, and not give them full ownership of the script, and the writers will make less money.”
So “If new technologies erode wages and increase wealth inequality, it’s a result of a political choice by the owners of that technology, not a result of the inevitable and unstoppable march of progress.” Says Merchant.
So we hope intelligent leaders too can learn from the historical lessons of the past, and apply the applied intelligence process objectively and effectively. To do their part in leading technology and digital transformation in the best interest of our society.
There is enormous value in history and lifelong learning should be everyone’s objective. Be curious and understand the value of history as the most useful form of data in helping us connect the dots for highly effective decisioning.
AI is largely about pattern recognition, so it is logical to use history to identify historical patterns that can help us in the present and future. and at the very least, history serves us best in making us aware because knowledge and intelligence rule the world and ignorance carries the burden of suffering.
