Tech Power

Why did US tech swing right in 2024?

2024 will be remembered as the year US tech unwoke — partially.

Silicon Valley used to be uniformly, deeply progressive, from its top CEOs all the way down its rank and file. I speak from experience: I spent the last decade and a half immersed in its culture.

This political homogeneity was, in my view, driven by three factors:

• First, everyone in tech always believed (or told themselves) that they are working to “make the world a better place” — on this, the ‘Silicon Valley’ tv series was more documentary than parody.

• Second, lavish compensations and ever-rising company valuations reinforced the impression that money was an unlimited resource.

• Third, the sense of belonging to a select tribe engendered a high degree of groupthink.

This could lead to amusing contradictions. After Trump was elected President in 2016, I sat in a number of dinners where tech entrepreneurs voiced agonized soul-searching on the prospect that their rapid advances in robotics and Artificial Intelligence would condemn scores of manufacturing workers across the US Midwest to eternal unemployment; and in the same breath condemned those workers as Trump-voting savages unworthy of survival.

Silicon Valley used to be uniformly, deeply progressive, with very few exceptions. So it was quite striking to see some high-profile tech leaders express their support for Trump this time around. Reactions to this unpredictable tech turnaround have been predictably partisan. The left quickly condemned the rise of tech authoritarianism — apparently a much darker prospect than their former alliance with the same tech sector. For the right, tech titans have simply seen the light — after a long wandering in sinful darkness.

A “soft repressive authoritarianism”

This cynical economist is skeptical of people “seeing the light.” A recent interview of tech superstar Marc Andreessen with The Free Press provides a more candid reading. Andreessen, who voted left until this year, recognizes that the tech industry has contributed to establishing a “soft repressive authoritarianism.”

But even beyond the partisan politics of it, it feels like the last decade has been a very emotionally dark and repressive time. And Silicon Valley was on the vanguard of what you might call a soft authoritarian social revolution starting about 10 or 12 years ago. And that soft repressive authoritarianism had a real negative impact on my whole world—the tech industry, the country, and I think an entire generation of young people. It certainly feels like that’s cracked.

On this soft repressive authoritarianism tech was happily aligned with the progressive political establishment. At some point, however, the politicians’ attitude seems to have turned a touch less friendly:

They [ruling politicians] adopted these very radical positions on tech, aimed squarely at damaging us as much as they possibly could. One was crypto, where they declared war and tried to kill the entire industry and drive it offshore.

Number two was AI, where I became very scared earlier this year that they were going to do the same thing to AI that they did to crypto. We had meetings in D.C. in May where we talked to them about this and the meetings were absolutely horrifying and we came out basically deciding we had to endorse Trump.

Oops. But we used to get along so well… These “absolutely horrifying” meetings clearly were quite a shock. Politicians made no mystery of what their goal was:

They said, AI is a technology basically that the government is going to completely control. This is not going to be a start-up thing. They actually said flat out to us, “Don’t do AI start-ups. Don’t fund AI start-ups.” They’re not going to be allowed to exist. There’s no point. They said, “AI is going to be a game of two or three big companies working closely with the government. And we’re going to basically wrap them in a government cocoon. We’re going to protect them from competition. We’re going to control them and we’re going to dictate what they do.”

And then I said, “I don’t understand how you’re going to lock this down so much because the math for AI is out there and it’s being taught everywhere.”

And they said, “Well, during the Cold War, we classified entire areas of physics and took them out of the research community and entire branches of physics basically went dark and didn’t proceed. And that if we decide we need to, we’re gonna do the same thing to the math underneath AI.”

Nice technology you have there. We don’t think you can be trusted with it. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, do we? Why don’t you hand it over and let the adults handle it.

Politicians, it seems, like power — shocking.

Paved with good intentions

The previous, long-standing alignment turned out to be a marriage of convenience.

The tech industry, on its mission to make the world a better place, took the lead in censoring “right-wing propaganda”, “Covid misinformation” and assorted “conspiracy theories”. Dissenting opinions on a growing range of issues were demonized and demonetized. The sound Covid advice of reputable scientists like Jay Bhattacharya, which could have saved lives, was shut down because it contradicted the wisdom of anointed public health administrators like Saint Anthony Fauci.

The tech sector meant well. The results were disastrous. Their actions compromised free speech, undermined confidence in science, and exacerbated political polarization. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But the more important outcome was an awesome demonstration of power — a power that politicians became increasingly reluctant to leave in the tech sector’s wise hands.

The government started to exert more direct influence on the tech censorship machine. Politicians began to consider additional measures to break the power of the tech industry, like proposals to break up Google. Then AI provided the best rationale for government control: the familiar “existential risk” argument which transpires in the quotes above. (Incidentally, all this sounds uncomfortably similar to the trends that have been playing out in China.)

The tech industry registered the threat and reacted, with some notable tech titans switching sides. It is a very understandable desire to maintain independence and power. The fact that European governments have taken the habit of targeting US tech giants with regulations and exorbitant fines might have provided an additional incentive for these companies to seek a closer relationship with a President-elect who signals a more combative stance towards trading partners.

The break-up of the previous cozy relationship between tech and one political side is a welcome reprieve. The “soft repressive authoritarianism” was becoming harder and more pervasive. The shift makes the tech industry a bit more ideologically diverse — just a bit, because the vast majority of tech still leans left. It has exposed the tension between the Valley’s original libertarian ethos and the uncompromising prescriptive stance of progressive politics.

This cynical economist, however, is under no illusions: the power that tech commands through information and AI will be a huge temptation for any administration. The fact that top tech CEOs are lining up in pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago is disquieting in this respect.

A fraught relationship

The relationship between tech and government will be a defining challenge in coming years. I have highlighted in a previous blog the insistent calls for government to play a bigger role in innovation. This comes against the background of stronger support for broader public intervention in the economy — from both sides of the political spectrum — including through industrial policy and trade protectionism. In a world where technology and economic trends have become more complex and interrelated, a better collaboration between public and private sector could be quite fruitful. It would ideally involve an open dialogue on rules and regulations, stronger government investment in infrastructure and basic research, and targeted collaborations between private and public actors.

The current relationship between the tech industry and government, however, is fraught with sensitive complications, and the fact that AI is seen as a transformational strategic technology heightens the stakes. Tech companies have shown they can control the flow of information to a remarkable degree — and will not hesitate to do so. AI magnifies the scope for mischief. Here is Andreessen again:

Social media went on this arc that I’ve described from 2013 to today where it became a censorship machine. AI has gone on a hyper-accelerated version of that arc. It took time for social media to become a censorship machine. It happened with AI right from the beginning.

At the same time, advances in AI could translate into massive advantages in critical technologies with both civilian and military applications — something that inevitably attracts government interest. The potentially adverse effects of AI, including nefarious and criminal applications, provide a case for government regulation. And the growing excitement about the future value of AI applications inflates the economic interests at stake. A lot can go badly wrong — again.

How the relationship between the tech sector and politics evolves will have very consequential effects on society. We should watch it closely, with a bipartisan cynical eye. It’s all about power.

Opening image credit: Casey Horner for Unsplash+