🙂 Is America really a techno-optimist country?

The economist authors of new book say it is. But I'm skeptical.

Quote of the Issue

“The solar system can support a trillion humans. And then we'd have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.” - Jeff Bezos

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The Essay

🙂 Is America really a techno-optimist country?

A lodestar of this newsletter is the idea that America and the West are too pessimistic about technological progress. Too much focus on potential downsides, not enough focus on potential benefits. Technophobia in lands filled with technology that makes our lives wealthier, healthier, and more fun.

So I found myself immediately perplexed when reading the opening paragraph of a book I’d been eagerly anticipating, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. (Look out for my upcoming podcast with Johnson.) The authors argue that the societal impacts of tech progress may be good or bad depending on societal choices. Among their concerns are excessive automation, economic inequality, and privacy, all places in historical context. And while Power and Progress is undoubtedly a deep and scholarly examination of these issues — I highly recommend the book, and it will undoubtedly make many “best of 2023” list of business and economics book — I took issue with the book from the get-go. Here’s how it starts:

Every day we hear from executives, journalists, politicians, and even some of our colleagues at MIT that we are heading relentlessly toward a better world, thanks to unprecedented advances in technology. Here is your new phone. There goes the latest electric car. Welcome to the next generation of social media. And soon, perhaps, scientific advances could solve cancer, global warming, and even poverty.

Of course, problems remain, including inequality, pollution, and extremism around the globe. But these are the birth pains of a better world. In any case, we are told, the forces of technology are inexorable. We couldn't stop them if we wanted to, and it would be highly inadvisable to try. It is better to change ourselves for example, by investing in skills that will be valued in the future. If there are continuing problems, talented entrepreneurs and scientists will invent solutions — more-capable robots, human-level artificial intelligence, and whatever other breakthroughs are required.

People understand that not everything promised by Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or even Steve Jobs will likely come to pass. But, as a world, we have become infused by their techno-optimism. Everyone everywhere should innovate as much as they can, figure out what works, and iron out the rough edges later.

America’s techno-pessimism, by the numbers

Perhaps that summary of the supposed techno-optimism of modern America applies to Faster, Please! readers. If only it also applied to broader society, as well! But I am highly skeptical it does. Let’s start with some recent polling:

• 69 percent of Americans appear to support a six-month pause in "some kinds of AI development.” - YouGov, April 2023

• 46 percent percent say that they are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about the possibility that AI will cause the end of the human race on Earth (with 23% "not very concerned, 17% not concerned at all, and 13% not sure). - YouGov, April 2023

• 75 percent of Americans who have heard of cryptocurrencies are not confident in their safety and reliability - Pew Research, April 2023

• 68 percent of Americans are afraid of self-driving cars, up from 55 percent in 2022 - AAA, March 2023.

• 82 percent believe AI should be regulated, while 78 percent are very or somewhat concerned about AI being used for malicious intent.- MITRE-Harris, February 2023

• Only 35 percent are comfortable using AI for autonomous rideshares. - MITRE-Harris, February 2023.

• 78 percent of Chinese agree with the statement that products and services using AI have more benefits than drawbacks versus 35 percent of Americans.

Techno-pessimist actions speak even louder than polls

Let’s move beyond public opinion to what we’ve actually been doing. The share of American energy production from nuclear power has been stuck at 20 percent for four decades. Supersonic flight has been banned over the United States for five decades. “Although the U.S. has no outright ban on editing the genes of human embryos, a restrictive regulatory landscape and a lack of federal support has imposed significant restrictions on researchers,” noted a 2019 Brookings Institution analysis. Oh, yeah, the dominant strain on the American environmental movement is hardly focused on technological solutions — nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, climate engineering — to combating climate change as opposed to envisioning (at best) a solarpunk world of less consumption and economic activity (and people). This from the Sierra Club:

The Sierra Club remains unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy. Although nuclear plants have been in operation for less than 60 years, we now have seen three serious disasters. Tragically, it took a horrific disaster in Japan to remind the world that none of the fundamental problems with nuclear power have ever been addressed.

Even though Silicon Valley and American technology companies remain broadly popular, there are big elements on the left and right that strongly oppose them for reasons of bias and corporate power. I can’t image a politician calling themselves a Tesla Republican or an OpenAI Democrat the way some in the pre-Trump GOP used to call themselves Uber Republicans.

Look, perhaps compared to Europe, which views its comparative advantage to be regulating technology and tech companies rather than creating technology and building tech companies, the U.S. looks crazy-got-nuts techno-optimistic. But only by comparison, perhaps.

Would a techno-optimistic society continue to churn out one dystopian film and television show after another where tech makes our life worse rather than better? I recently wrote about the big-budget, star-studded series Extrapolations on AppleTV+ that depicted a dying planet where humanity can cure cancer, travel to Mars, and develop supersmart AI, but can’t manage to generate abundant clean energy. The message is clear: technology won’t save you. And Extrapolations is hardly an outlier in dystopian films that blame techno-capitalism for the dystopia. Recall, for example, that in I Am Legend, it’s a cure for cancer that turns everyone into zombies

A glimpse of a techno-optimistic America

So what would, you know, the opposite look like?

• Policymakers would obsess about innovation and entrepreneurship, especially in fields like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, renewable energy, and space exploration.

• There would be a much higher level of policymaker and public trust and confidence in the benefits of technology, and a much lower level of fear or skepticism about its risks or drawbacks.

• Polls would suggest a greater willingness to embrace change and adapt to new technologies, rather than resist or reject them.

• Our culture would provide numerous visions of a future where technology enables a society that is free from scarcity, poverty and, disease.

• There would be greater celebration of the achievements and contributions of super-entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and others.

In short, I don’t think a substantial chunk of the American public thinks it’s “heading relentlessly toward a better world, thanks to unprecedented advances in technology.” And if it somehow does, then it must also believe our actions have little impact on the direction given so much bad public policy on immigration, investment, regulation, among other areas. NEPA forever! That would be bad, too.

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Micro Reads

▶ Global Views: Climbing the Wall of Worry - Goldman Sachs Economics | Our US growth forecast for 2023 remains at a well-above-consensus 1.6% (annual average) and our judgmental 12-month recession probability at a well-below-consensus 35%. We would split the latter number roughly evenly into the probability that the current banking turmoil—or another near-term shock such as a debt limit crisis—pushes the economy into recession in the next quarter or two, and the probability that upside inflation surprises force the Fed to deliver more monetary tightening that raises recession risk in late 2023/early 2024. Both outcomes are possible, but neither is likely in our view.

▶ AI’s Ostensible Emergent Abilities Are a Mirage - Katherine Miller, Stanford HAI |

▶ Help! My Political Beliefs Were Altered by a Chatbot! - Christopher Mims, WSJ |

▶ Beware the ‘bad-ish’ actor when it comes to AI - Leo Lewis, FT Opinion |

▶ R&D Capital and the Idea Production Function - Jakub Growiec, Peter McAdam, and Jakub Mućk, KC Fed |

▶ He defied Alzheimer’s for two decades. Scientists want to know how. - Carolyn Y. Johnson, WaPo |

▶ AI in Washington's crosshairs but consensus far from certain - Reuters |

▶ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years - Jonathan O'Callaghan, MIT Tech Review |