Spent some time reading the book Power and Progress by Nobel Prize-winning economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. In that book they basically point out that all the "promises of progress and prosperity" by technology entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley are not automatic.
History shows that an automatic increase in prosperity by all after the introduction and adoption of a new technology does not always happen. Case in point: "the cotton gin." Perhaps it made a lot of Southern planters rich, but it seriously caused a degrading in the lives of those in slavery.
Those constantly peddling new technological "machines" and solutions try to foreclose any questions about whether those are really beneficial to all by emphasizing what I call the "Silicon Valley Promise." At a basic level, this promise says we will all benefit from the latest innovation to come from these tech-entrepreneurs.
There are many books written in the service of indoctrinating people with the "Silicon Valley Promise." One such book by Erik Byrnjolfsson in 2013 entitled " The Second Machine Age" is typical of this genre generated by tech-cheerleaders of Silicon Valley. In this book, he aptly captures a singular doctrine of the Silicon Valley Technology Cult when he writes:
"What can we do to create shared prosperity? The answer is not to slow down technology. Instead of racing against the machine, we need to race with the machine. That is our grand challenge."
In other words, whatever is invented by Silicon Valley and the Technology Cult, it will bring about prosperity and progress, so we might as well accept it, adopt it, and race along with it. Don't take time to even question whether it is needed or desired or really even beneficial. Let's just adopt it and make millions.
The problem is, what if that technology is racing toward a cliff? Not to be apocalyptic, but it doesn't have to be a world-ending cliff to be detrimental. It might simply be a cliff of unforeseen, negative consequences because we have been too busy "racing with the technology."
Don't get me wrong, I am not a believer in the cult of a futuristic Artificial General Intelligence" that is somehow going to be our savior and lead us out of this mess technology created in the first place. I do not believe machines will ever be able to totally think and be like humans. But nonetheless, we have participated in this race to nowhere many times before.
This racing that Brynjolfsson speaks of is the best foundational marketing that any product could possibly have. Short-circuit any all moral and social questions and criticism in the beginning. No matter what is invented is going to bring prosperity to all. Upon introduction of a new technology, the inventor is prosperous of course, but the marketers can jump aboard and make their money too. Then the consultants join in and become prosperous. The salespeople join in and become prosperous. There are those who even invent new careers based on this technology who become prosperous.
Everyone who races along with the technology instead of fighting it become prosperous. Never mind those who are pre-empted from joining the race to begin with and who do not have the means to do so. But, there is no harm here, correct?
