Big Tech has amassed incredible power; economically, politically, and culturally. Their dream: a global community united by technology. This segment provides some insight into how much power they have, how they attained it, and their aspirations on how to use it. It includes excerpts from all five of the Big Tech books utilized in the series.
The journalists called them robber barons at the start of the 20th century when the U.S. government broke them up. Many journalists today are referring to Big Tech in the same vein, tech barons if you will. This segment is broken into five parts, Return of Monopolies, Big Tech’s Vision, how did we get here? Some of the Consequences, and Potential Action that could be Taken.
Segment 3 analyzes Big Tech’s business model that has been so successful in creating a market, dominating that market, extracting huge margins from the market, and how we, the consumer, have given up a degree of personal privacy in the process.
Social media addiction is a growing concern particularly with children and teenagers, given the consequences of depression and suicide. Why and how severe is it? Manipulation is a conscious goal, and it has been successful on the political scene. How is it done?
We are rapidly moving into a world in which Big Tech algorithms are involved in almost every aspect of our lives. Simultaneously, Big Tech has the power to determine what information we can access: on the internet, social media, and as the biggest news publisher in America. Further they have the surveillance capability to track our movements. Is this for real?
The first question is how did Big Government aid Big Tech to get so powerful? The second question: is it possible to take the power back? The third question: do we want to take the power back given our dependency on Big Tech for Artificial Intelligence? All are addressed in this segment.
One author compared AI to the “harnessing of electricity: a breakthrough technology on its own, that once harnessed can be applied to revolutionize dozens of different industries.” A second wrote, “We are in the midst of significant transformation, not unlike the generations who lived through the Industrial Revolution.” A third wrote, “China has bet the proverbial farm on AI.” Net, it has unbelievable potential. But it is not without its risks: high unemployment, giving up individual power, and a race for supremacy of the world between the U.S. and China. This segment provides potential opportunity application areas in multiple industries plus illustrations of how AI can be used. It also looks at areas of disruption as the result of its application and a brief overview of the superpower AI race.
Segment 8 contains a brief description of how AI works, a scenario on how one author sees AI developing and being applied, and how the U.S. and China predictably will differ on their AI approach to global markets. AI is software, so its application requires different devices for different applications. The segment also provides insight on some that already exist and their potential evolution.
There are a plethora of issues and concerns. Major among them are significant unemployment creation, greater income inequality among classes of people, greater global inequality among nations, and psychological loss. Each are discussed in this segment. Additionally, a potential timeline for AI is included.
Agency is defined as the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of executing power. The application of AI is going to result in that battle for power on several fronts: between Big Tech and the masses, between machines and the masses, between governments, and between Big Tech and the government. Each is covered in the segment in particular the likely emotional and cognitive impact on the masses.
The way the two major powers in the AI race (the U.S. and China) have approached AI to date and plan to in the future are significantly different, including educating their populations, their vision, their planning, and their application. This segment provides some details You can judge which you think will be the most successful.
One author, Rana Foroohar, writes, “We are likely at the biggest geopolitical turning point since the Second World War.” A second author, Rajiv Malhotra, writes, “Artificial Intelligence is to China’s 21st century rise to power what the Industrial Revolution was to Britain’s ascendance in the late 1700s.” A third author Kai-Fu Lee says the following, “I believe that China will soon match or even overtake the U.S. in developing and deploying artificial intelligence. In my view, that lead in AI development will translate into productivity gains on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution.” This segment provides information as to why the current AI trend line indicates China is going to take the lead in the battle for World Domination.
How AI is going to progress and its resultant impact on society is a matter of speculation. This segment provides three different scenarios of the future: a pragmatic one and a catastrophic one both by futurist Amy Webb. The third, “Happy Morons and Depopulation” is the perspective of Rajiv Malhotra. All three are dire in their consequences.
This is a fourth scenario, the third one from futurist Amy Webb which was written in 2019. Indeed, it is one of optimism. It begins with a picture of AI in the U.S. in 2023. You can judge whether we will achieve the state describe in two more years and the realism in achieving the eventual outcome of the scenario in 2069.
Dr. Lee describes the major AI completions by 2041 based on realistic AI or technologies that either already exist or can be reasonably expected to mature in the next 20 years with a probability greater than 80%. He predicts major change in healthcare; education; services in hotels, offices, homes, and food preparation as well as transportation via self-driving cars.
In essence this is a fifth series scenario. It begins with an Dr. Lee’s analysis of what AI cannot do. He then couples that with the societal impact of AI which signals that a major problem will occur in how to utilize the human time freed because of human replacement by robots and AI (both total job replacement and routine chore assumption by robots and AI such as cleaning, laundry, delivery dishwashing, and cooking). He then develops a new social vision on how to utilize that time with emphasis on avoiding the creation of a “useless class.”
This is a postscript for the five series thus far contained in the blog – Climate Change, Socialism, New Cold War (China), Nihilism, and Big Tech & AI. The research in the five delineate four significant threats to our country: demise via (1) fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions, (2) governmental change to Marxism, (3) China takeover, and (4) AI technology. The segment includes my perspective on the reality of each and our country’s current thrusts addressing each one.
Epilogue 1: The Silicon Leviathan Congress gave Big Tech the legal right to censor its platforms when it enacted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Their intent was for preventing such things as pornography on their platforms, but in doing so they shielded Silicon Valley in ways that go far beyond the scope of what Congress envisioned. Further, Congress has done nothing to reverse such abuses by the tech companies. The excerpts in this epilogue will provide an understanding of such consequences plus examples of how they are manifested. Epilogue 2: Artificial Intelligence Policy Making Artificial Intelligence offers potentially large opportunities for the advancement of society and its prosperity. At the same time the application of the technology has some significant downsides that could materialize. One important aspect of how the technology is eventually employed are if and how such downsides are approached and regulated. This epilogue looks at such policy issues in such areas as governance, privacy, offensive application (e.g., touched up photographs), human control (e.g., facial recognition), biased data, healthcare (e.g., implanted monitors), education, transportation (e.g., driverless cars), legal liability, and importantly world-wide defense utilization (e.g., warfare). Further, the excerpts outline some potential ethical safeguards such as individual fairness, government surveillance, and political authoritarianism. To view thebook listing click here:Big Tech & AI Book Listing