Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I realized what bothers me about @vitalik.eth d/acc essay. Even though it is optimistic, it shares with the pessimist side a presumption that technology, as an evolutionary process, *can* be governed according to some notion of human intent. “Tech can/cannot be governed” is a bigger divide than optimism/pessimism
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
The rare technologies we’ve been able to weakly “govern”, like nuclear have a) highly upstream proliferation choke points (fissile materials) without which knowledge is useless b) no real upside to small-scale/retail use/democratization. I want AI; I don’t really want a backyard or small-biz nuclear plant.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I think overall I fall on e/acc side because I don’t think meaningful governance is possible without large-scale authoritarianism. Culture is highly governable. Trump, Taylor Swift, MCU etc show how it can be done. Economics is weakly governable to ungovernable. Tech is near-pure anarchy.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Even apparent counterexamples are weaker than they look: Nuclear: Proliferation reaches North Korea Aviation: Drones!! Pharmaceuticals: Gray markets; India bucking western IP regimes If you were historically first mover, you can slow things a bit, that’s it https://warpcast.com/dwr.eth/0x6084cdcf
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I’d say main e/acc axioms are: 1. Knowledge *will* leak to all who can master it, faster than you think 2. They will want to do very different things with it 3. They will not have an interest in use-consensus and 1-few defectors can blow up consensus 4. Innovation will break chokepoints 5. This is all net good
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Now with AI, the obvious chokepoint is silicon. If you follow the industry (Semianalyis, China Talk newsletters), it is obvious control has *already* slipped away. EUV machines from ASML aren’t the iron grip chokehold you think they are. China will get past 3nm. Everything above fab level is bs illusions of control.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I think this is an absolute good thing. Much as I dislike China’s authoritarian surveillance state a) the West isn’t much better b) I’d like a duopoly at least to break out of Western-centric AI monopoly dangerously open to regulatory capture by crackpot doomers
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