Although there is a sprawling patchwork of ideas and philosophies that feed these visions, three features play a central role, explains Adam Becker, scientific writer and astrophysicist: an unshakable certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the need for perpetual growth and an obsession that is in the transcendation of our physical and biological limits. In his new appropriate book, More everything forever: the suzerains of AI, space empires and the crusade of Silicon Valley to control the fate of humanity,, Becker calls this triumvirate of beliefs “the ideology of technological salvation” and warns that technological titans use it to direct humanity in a dangerous direction.
“In most of these ismes, you will find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders – as long as we do not embark technological progress.”
“The credibility that technological billionaires give to these specific science fiction future validate their pursuit of more“To represent the growth of their businesses as a moral imperative, to reduce the complex problems of the world to the simple questions of technology, (and) to justify almost all the action they might want to take,” he wrote. Becker maintains that the only way to free themselves from these visions is to see them for what they are: a practical excuse to continue to destroy regulations today, the skirt, consumption more power and control, and to reject very real problems today to imagine.
Many criticisms, academics and journalists have attempted to define or distill the ethics of Silicon Valley over the years. There was Californian ideology“In the mid -90s, the era” Move Fast and Break Things “in the early 2000s, and more recently “”Libertarianism for me, feudalism for you“” Or “techno-authoritarian“Views. How do you see “the ideology of technological salvation” integrating?
I would say that this is really a piece with these previous attempts to describe the state of mind of Silicon Valley. I mean, you can trace a fairly straight line from Principles of Max Plus transhumanism In the 90s to Californian ideology (a mashup of counter-cultural, libertarian and neoliberal values) and to what I call the ideology of technological salvation. The fact is that many ideas that define or animate the thought of Silicon Valley have never been a mystery – Liberarism, an antipathy towards government and regulations, unlimited faith in technology, the obsession with optimization.
What can be difficult is to analyze where all these ideas come from and how they assemble – or if they adapt at all. I found the ideology of technological salvation as a means of naming and giving form to a group of interdependent concepts and philosophies which may seem extended and poorly defined at the beginning, but which are in fact at the center of a world vision shared by capitalists of venture capital, frameworks and other opinion leaders in the technology industry.
Readers probably know the technological billionaires presented in your book and at least some of their ambitions. I suppose that they will be less familiar with the different “ismes” who, in your opinion, have influenced or guided their thoughts. Effective altruismRationalism, long term, extropianism, effective acceleration, futurism, singularitarianism,transhumanism– There are many. Is there something they all share?
They are definitely connected. In a sense, you could say that these are all versions or instance of the ideology of technological salvation, but there are also very deep historical links between the people of these groups and their objectives and beliefs. THE Extroppens At the end of the 1980s, believed in self -transformation by technology and freedom of limits of all kinds – ideas that Ray Kurzweil finally helped to popularize and legitimize for a wider audience with The singularity.
In most of these ISMs, you will find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an amazing future, full of unimaginable wonders – as long as we do not embark technological progress. I must say that the researcher of IA Timnit Gebru and the philosopher Émile Torres also did a lot of work bind these ideologies to each other And show how they all have links with racism, misogyny and eugenics.