Well, if you read my stuff, you already know that the answer is no. No, we cannot survive capitalism unless it is wrapped inside a tightly constrained legal framework that is ready to extinguish its destructive effects as soon as they come to light. Usually, you make an argument over the course of an essay, but I thought I’d save you some time, you know, for productivity’s sake.
Anyway, here goes.
In 2022, the Biden administration passed the rather foolishly named—as a reaction to the right-wing disinformation machines’ machinations—the Inflation Reduction Act. It was an initiative that poured 370 billion into climate mitigation and clean energy job production. Along with elements in the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure bill, it was meant to reduce our carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, help us catch up in renewable energy production and move us into the clean energy economy while creating long-term union-based jobs. It was also unfortunately designed to allocate those funds through tax credits in the coming years, and so, effectively, the vast majority of the money is under threat by the MAGA regime and its ability to hinder what should be legally protected programs. So in the MAGA paradigm, we’re dooming ourselves to climate catastrophe.
Still, that 370 billion, meant to be spent over ten years, was the largest investment in clean energy to help us maintain a healthy planet for future generations that anyone has ever made. That almost sounds impressive until you realize what could have been done. Because, besides the MAGA regime, the other threat to solving climate change is even greater, and that’s Silicon Valley, who has spurred the world into a global AI arms race while completely abandoning their commitment to clean energy. This year alone, not ten years like the IRA, but this year alone, Silicon Valley has amassed roughly 700 billion in AI investment. Much of that investment is prioritized to build unregulated, extremely dirty and water-intensive data centers and the energy sources needed to power them, which will be mostly fossil fuels. Yep, that’s right. Apparently, when we put our minds to it, we can come up with 700 billion in one year to try to become filthy rich, but we struggle to muster up 37 billion a year to save the planet. And the last time I checked, we don’t have a backup planet.
So here’s where I’m going to take a quick philosophical break. Just as a reminder, please keep in mind that the world is real. Water is real. Air is real. And the temperature that we can sustain life as we know it is real. Money, on the other hand, is fiction. It’s a story that we made up. And right now, the most powerful men on the planet are racing to create an artificial intelligence that they believe will allow them to stockpile an imaginary number of credits into a spreadsheet that they could never possibly deplete. Or even ever hold in their hands. It’ll only exist in their minds. And to achieve that, they are willing to risk depleting the natural resources that sustain all life on Earth. I’m sure that sounds crazy, it should, but you also just heard the very definition of capitalism. It’s why capitalism has to be put in a straitjacket. The whole size and shape and the very nature of capitalism itself does not fit within the confines of the laws of nature—and it never will.
So, now might be a good time to bring up the World Economic Forum. You know, the Davos meeting, the meeting place of global capitalism. The WEF’s stated mission is “improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.” To its credit, and probably more to its drive for self-preservation, the WEF has changed its priorities somewhat in the past number of years to promote what it calls stakeholder capitalism. Instead of only promoting shareholder capitalism, it is now taking into account what they call the stakeholders. Meaning employees, customers, suppliers, local communities and the environment. And without ruminating on the fact that apparently they never factored in these stakeholders before, they probably meant to place them in that order, with diminishing concerns. And speaking of concerns, In their view, the following ten items are the greatest threats to economic growth and our general well-being. I actually agree with this list, and my question is: Which of these does AI hope to solve? Or which of these will be made far worse by our current no-holds-barred development of AI? I’ll chime in as we go along.
Geoeconomic Confrontation: Escalating economic warfare, trade wars, and sanctions.
Obviously worse since Silicon Valley has largely abandoned economic cooperation to solve climate change to instead begin an AI arms race, which requires control of chips, critical minerals and energy production. The kind of stuff we usually squabble about.
State-based Armed Conflict: Rise in localized and global conflicts.
Well, obviously, conflict will get deadlier with AI weapons. We’re already seeing it in Gaza and Iran.
Extreme Weather Events: Increasing intensity and frequency of climate-driven disasters.
AI evangelists like to say that when we achieve AGI, we’ll use it to solve climate change. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh I’m, sorry they said that with a straight face, didn’t they? We have everything we need to solve climate change, and it doesn’t require energy and water-intensive data centers or personal agentic assistants.
Societal Polarization: Continued erosion of social cohesion.
Well, I’m sure the AI slop can help put an end to that. Hint: that’s called sarcasm.
Mis- and Disinformation: Rapid spread of falsehoods affecting trust.
See above.
Economic Downturn: Persistent economic instability.
AI-evangelists are promising massive economic upheaval. They’re super excited about it.
Erosion of Human Rights/Civic Freedoms: Growing restriction of liberties.
Study after study shows that the current algorithms are not only biased, but they are also bypassing our civil rights laws in a million different ways and enabling a science fiction level of surveillance. I can’t imagine that supercharged AI tools will do any better; they’ll just be more—and they love this word—productive.
Adverse Outcomes of AI Technologies: Risks from unmanaged AI adoption.
Self-explanatory, and hey, that’s on my top ten list too!
Cyber Insecurity: Systemic cyberattacks affecting infrastructure.
I can’t imagine a way that AI could possibly affect this one. Oh, wait, did I say could? I meant couldn’t—couldn’t.
Inequality: Growing wealth and resource gaps.
Well, according to Elon Musk, we’ll never have to work again. Or find work again? Or eat? I can’t remember exactly, but it’s something like that.
So, it looks to me that AI dev is the World Economic Forum’s worst nightmare. I feel like we’re just watching the capitalists do battle with each other at this point. I wish I could afford the popcorn.
So that brings me back to my main question: Can we survive AI? With different values, we could easily survive AI. With different motivations, we’d probably be taking a very different approach. Or maybe even deciding that we don’t actually need it as quickly as we’re developing it and that it requires international cooperation to be beneficial at all. What we don’t need is a no-holds-barred arms race to see who gets it first. Especially when we have a very real problem staring us in the face, one that isn’t simply going to go away.
Then the other question: can we survive capitalism? Sure, but we’ll have to get out from under it and put it in our rear-view mirror. Sometimes, ideas get into the world that just don’t work within the confines of the laws of nature. Turns out you can’t just endlessly take more than you give back. That is the inherent flaw of capitalism, its poisoned pill, especially when living within an ecosystem that requires balance and reciprocity. If we want to survive, we’ll have to save the planet we live on from ourselves, and we don’t need artificial intelligence to do that. We need common sense and political will and the kind of values that aim to make the world a better place for future generations. Values frankly that Silicon Valley, or capitalism in general, does not possess.
So yes, if we ever make it back to a functioning democracy, we’ll need to nationalize Silicon Valley before it’s too late. And that means some pretty simple things. Break up the monopolies. End their ability to purchase our elections. Take critical technologies, like AI, and put them under government control, where at least there’s some accountability. Take back much of the critical infrastructure. Regulate the corrosive disinformation out of existence. And put a stop to their destructive social manipulations.
The future of humanity depends on it. I’ll prioritize that over Artificial Intelligence any day of the week.