Enterprise capital big Andreessen Horowitz has introduced its intent to start lobbying the U.S. authorities, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer time’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Primarily, they may give to anybody — literally anyone — who “helps an optimistic technology-enabled future.”
That is what’s known as being a single-issue voter, and whereas co-founder Ben Horowitz (who penned the weblog put up) appears to assume asserting themselves as such provides their lobbying a child-like purity, it’s fairly the other.
The very fact is that they’re wealthy ideologues asserting their intent to pay any politician who will advance their agenda, no matter that politician’s different views. It truly is that straightforward!
That tech is extra vital than individuals is prime to their method. They’d argue that they’re pro-people by means of being pro-tech, for instance as they write, “Synthetic Intelligence has the potential to uplift all of humanity to an unprecedented high quality of residing.”
Due to this fact, being pro-AI is being pro-people, proper? And actually, if you consider it, if AI might result in a 100x enchancment within the human situation long run, it justifies taking actions that produce worse outcomes within the brief time period. As an example, supporting politicians who oppose fundamental civil rights simply because they’ve a extra hands-off tech regulation proposal.
Would Andreessen and Horowitz help a politician proposing a nationwide abortion ban, as an illustration, or widespread banning of “woke agenda” books, if that individual mentioned they’d belief AI corporations to do what’s greatest for everybody? Effectively, in accordance with a16z’s assertion of function right here, that abortion stuff is none of their enterprise! They’re “non-partisan, one problem voters.”
However that’s simply bullshit, proper?
Within the first place, the concept that this one problem is non-partisan is risible. Compelled-birth advocates would most likely say they’re non-partisan, one-issue voters too. It’s not about politics, it’s about the precise to life, in any case. That just one political get together has cynically tied this and different “conventional values” to each different coverage proposal for many years is irrelevant!
No, no — you don’t get to only declare non-partisanship in a weblog put up. Tech regulation has change into a partisan problem like the whole lot else. The debates on internet neutrality, on Part 230, on TikTok, on disinformation in social media, and on a16z’s pet techs AI, cryptocurrency and biotech — all partisan! That’s merely the character of politics now. Even not taking part in lobbying is in a means a partisan choice as a result of it indicators that you’re not prepared to take a aspect.
However that non-partisan language is simply the standard dressing for this type of announcement. Everybody claims it as a result of it’s a meaningless high quality and might’t be proved or disproved. The issue with a16z’s philosophy right here is that it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothes: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.
You need to think about that some cigarette business govt wrote an identical weblog put up within the ’60s: We’re a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly stopping People from having fun with the nice style and well being advantages of our all-natural tobacco merchandise.
Similar for plastics, meals components, leaded fuel, the whole lot else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a hard impediment to enrichment.
If they really cared in any respect about individuals and the way politics or this lobbying effort would possibly have an effect on them, “individuals” most likely would have been talked about as greater than summary ideas which may theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.
It’s unrealistic to assume that by donating to a politician who helps their deregulatory imaginative and prescient, a16z is not going to even be supporting the opposite insurance policies that folks really vote on proper now. Issues like voting rights, reproductive care, training. This apparent battle of pursuits is conveniently prevented. Is any place, any proposal vile sufficient for them to withdraw help, or will they stick by their ideas, if they are often described as such?
They will’t anticipate us to imagine that their understanding of lobbying and politics is that this naive. There are good individuals at that agency. We should take their assertion at face worth that they honestly don’t care about something however rising the sector they spend money on. However what they’re declaring just isn’t, as they recommend, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, however a cynical self-interested stance that’s essentially anti-people.
However a16z doesn’t care about individuals — it cares about humanity.
And humanity will certainly be grateful when, as we enter this golden age of know-how, we enter a darkish age of civil and social coverage, proper? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy, however at the very least they may have the blockchain.