Meanwhile, Stross is literally in the smoke-and-mirror business. He feels threatened, I get that. As an author, LLMs must look like an unpiloted bulldozer heading straight for his house. That's OK; he'll end up in a better neighborhood, just like the rest of us.
This particular brand of billionaire really believes in the power of technology and science to save the world, enough to make these kinds of moonshots. That belief didn't come from nowhere. It came from reading a particular kind of science fiction from a particular era. Stross points this all out.
Without the fiction giving them these ideas, they would be going about their business much much differently. They'd be doing it like other, ordinary American business. The kind that actually changes the world. Shipping, commerce, unS3XY enterprise. That's what made the modern world.
The fantasy that individuals affect history and not just culture is precisely the smoke and mirrors. Information technology makes service economies viable. That's the only contribution that could even remotely be tied to improving the global order. And it wasn't done by techbro enthusiasts, Apple and Microsoft enjoy the glory, but the real heroes are the academics that did the real research.
Without the fiction giving them these ideas, they would be going about their business much much differently. They'd be doing it like other, ordinary American business. The kind that actually changes the world. Shipping, commerce, unS3XY enterprise. That's what made the modern world.
Been reading a bit about Henry Ford lately. I wonder what sci-fi novels he read as a kid. If you think Musk is an asshole...
At any rate, you're making the same mistake Stross does. Human will to power came first, then the sci-fi, then the reality. For better or worse, the sci-fi is optional. Fiction writers don't build the roads, they just paint the signs.
Trust me if the current robber barons thought they could get away with acting like the old robber barons, they most certainly would. Society changed and made it much more difficult for single persons to amass so much power. It will be the same with the new batch. In another decade, this tech cult will be a distant memory.
Meanwhile, Stross is literally in the smoke-and-mirror business. He feels threatened, I get that. As an author, LLMs must look like an unpiloted bulldozer heading straight for his house. That's OK; he'll end up in a better neighborhood, just like the rest of us.