⏩ FP! Week In Review #45
Also: Key Up Wing and Down Wing news from the week that was
In Case You Missed It ...
🤖 Yes, conservatives can support advanced AI (Tuesday, 1298 words)
Summary: Princeton University scholar Gregory Conti argues in “The AI Apocalypse Is Already Here” that conservatives should oppose AI—both the pursuit of superintelligence and today’s anthropomorphic chatbots, which he calls a cataclysm amounting to cognitive and moral surrender. I couldn’t disagree more. Some evidence: We still prize human-created expression through art; AI in education is a solvable worry (and a wildly underrated tutoring opportunity); through 250 years of technological progress, the value of human effort and presence has shown remarkable staying power; and while many in Silicon Valley might say otherwise, economists presented with rapid-progress AI scenarios still see plenty for us to do decade after decade. (This possibility is also underrated.) Finally, Conti underestimates real-world constraints on scary singularity scenarios, just as many technologists do. The sort of change-abhorrent conservatism he’s defending isn’t the Up Wing kind, which welcomes the future. It’s an issue I address in my 2023 book:
Maybe Ronald Reagan was a genetic error in the DNA code of American conservatism, much as Mikhail Gorbachev was in Soviet communism. Not only did Reagan have an expansive view of human potential—he loved a Thomas Paine quote that many traditional conservatives hate: “We have it within our power to begin the world over again”—but he also embraced a techno-solutionist ethos. It was technology that Reagan saw as the means to end the threat of nuclear annihilation through the Strategic Defense Initiative. It was technology that made a mockery of the Malthusian limits-to-growth predictions and forecasts of global famine. “We’re breaking through the material conditions of existence to a world where man creates his own destiny,” Reagan told students at Moscow State University back in 1988.
⤴️ Creating a culture of progress: My chat with journalist and author Virginia Postrel (Thursday, podcast transcript)
Summary: On this episode of Faster, Please!—The Podcast, I talk with Virginia Postrel about the pitfalls of a top-down approach to innovation, and the case for letting bottom-up dynamism flourish instead. Postrel is an author, columnist, and speaker whose scholarly interests range from emerging technology to history and culture. She has authored four books, including The Future and Its Enemies (1998) and her most recent, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World (2020). Postrel is a contributing editor for Works in Progress magazine and writes her own Substack.
This wonderful podcast chat with audio was originally published on Jan. 16, 2025.
In This Episode
Technocrats vs. dynamists
Today’s deregulation movement
What to make of Musk
On electric cars
Thinking about California
↔️ Is progress possible in an empty world? (Friday, 1033 words)
Summary: If the San Francisco Consensus is correct, we're entering technological Terra Incognita. Now here’s amazing coincidence—the Rise of the Smart Machines arrives alongside the Decline of Homo sapiens. In “Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World,” economists Jesús Fernández-Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania) and Patrick Norrick (Northwestern University) see global population peaking near 9 billion around 2056—way earlier than the UN—then falling, first slowly, then fast. The Big Shrink is nigh. Their conjectured cause: modernity itself. So no predictable rebound short of a large change in how societies are organized. Alas, fewer people means fewer researchers, fewer ideas, and less innovation-driven growth. The possible offset to stagnation is AI, and “all of this,” the authors concede about the economic impact of depopulation, could change with its progress.
On sale everywhere: The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised
⤴️⤵️ Up Wing/Down Wing
A selection of pro-progress and anti-progress news items from the past week.
⤴ Up Wing Things
Mark Zuckerberg’s latest manifesto promises to save America with AI - The Washington Post
Tesla Nears Unveiling of Radical New ‘Flying’ Roadster - The Information
Postbiotic supplement boosts body’s own GLP-1 and weight loss - New Scientist
US test reactors achieve milestones - World Nuclear News
Mount Toba eruption doesn’t seem like it could nearly kill our species - Ars Technica
The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success - Ars Technica
Interstellar Travel III: Antimatter to the Rescue? - Universe Today
His Start-Up’s Goal: A.I. That Is Trainable and Not Controlled by a Big Company - NYT
Wall St. Wants Another Half-Trillion Dollars for the A.I. Boom - NYT
Target Hires First Chief AI Officer in Retail’s Latest Tech Push - WSJ
Data Centers Are Fueling a Tiny Nuclear Hype Cycle - Heatmap
CRISPR-armed phages help treat severe superbug infection - New Scientist
These startups are chasing the next big thing in LLMs - MIT Technology Review
Anthropic investors bet on $2tn valuation in record IPO - FT
⤵ Down Wing Things
When Texas Cools on Data Centers, Big Tech Has a Problem - Bloomberg
America Wants to Make Its Own Humanoid Robots. That Won’t Be Easy. - NYT
If You Weren’t Worried About A.I., You Should Be After the Past Few Weeks - NYT
Chinese Censorship Is Leaking Into Answers From American AI - WSJ
How ancient trees are warning us about the next enormous solar storm - New Scientist
The unexpected issue dividing parties and midterms candidates - WashPost
America Wants to Make Its Own Humanoid Robots. That Won’t Be Easy. - NYT
The AI perception bubble - Axios
The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty | WIRED _ Wired
US wait times for cancer surgeries are getting longer and longer - Ars Technica - Ars Technica
Don’t Buy Zuckerberg’s ‘Good Guy of AI’ Act - Bloomberg
Humans cannot remain passengers in the back of the AGI car - FT
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the Misreading of Science Fiction - WIRED
The Perils of Wall St.’s Race to Pour Billions More Into A.I. - NYT
Waymo Is Growing Faster Than Ever. So Are Its Glitches. - NYT
Tenacious AI agents expose dark side of machine autonomy - Axios
We Spend Billions to Discover Cures. Why Don’t They Get to Patients? - NYT
AI models are breaking out of their cages. Their creators are scrambling. - The Washington Post
AI Is the Greatest Grievance Machine Ever - Bloomberg
Amazon Is Building America’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Plant to Power AI - Heatmap
Data Center Bans Top 500 as New York, Texas Join Pushback - The Information
↕️ Which Wing Things?
These A.I. Policies Will Hurt Our Business. We Should Do Them Anyway. - NYT
OpenAI and Anthropic in price war as Chinese AI rivals gain ground _ FT
To Fix Education, Fix The Economy First - Edward Conard
A.I.-Driven Chip Crunch Leads to New Rush of Lobbying in Washington - NYT
Mark Zuckerberg attacks ‘closed’ AI rivals as Meta returns to open models - FT
OpenAI Pauses Astra Work on Cyber Concerns - The Information
OpenAI Pauses Astra Work on Cyber Concerns - POLITICO
What Do Young People Really Want? The Suburbs. - The Free Press
The Tech–Trad Alliance: R.I.P. (2025–2025) - The New Atlantis
Anthropic Tries to Shore Up Investor Confidence Ahead of Blockbuster IPO - WSJ
Can a 30-person start-up build Britain’s answer to OpenAI? - FT
With new open models, Meta pitches another reboot of its struggling AI strategy - Ars Technica
AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive - WIRED
Why Wall Street and Nvidia Are Building an Exotic Money Pipeline for the AI Boom - WSJ
Unregulated Open-Weight AI Is an Invitation to Disaster - WSJ
Claude’s new Scarlet Letter watermark is invisible—for now - Ars Technica
Boarding China’s Last Bus - Asterisk Magazine
How kids feel about AI, in their own words - MIT Technology Review