Society–all of civilization that isn’t reducible to financial data–bears the consequences, but over a timespan far longer than the initial expansion of the technology. In other words, the immediate rewards of the technological revolution go to the fast-moving innovators while the broader consequences–both the benefits and the downsides–impact the socio-cultural-political realms over a much longer time frame.
This creates a time-response lag, where society must absorb and assess the consequences years or even decades after the initial expansion of the technology. The organizational tool of innovators is the corporation, a financial structure with a single goal–expand revenues and profits by any means available–and a quasi-military command-control-communications (a.k.a. 3C) hierarchy.
This structure meshes perfectly with markets, which price everything in the moment: markets lack mechanisms to price future consequences; they only price production, transport, currencies, materials, marketing, inventory, etc. in the present.
In contrast, society is characterized by a multitude of interests and structures in various stages of advocacy. There is no one single goal or hierarchy, and the upsides and downsides of technological changes are typically distributed very unevenly.
Those positioned to reap the rewards gain ground, those positioned to bear the brunt of negative consequences lose ground. Each will then advocate for controls or let-it-run-wild accordingly.
The American ethos favors the let-it-run-wild and pick up the pieces later approach to technological revolutions. This serves the interests of the initial innovators and speculators, who can amass great fortunes in the initial speculative frenzy to get on board. This has played out in railroads, autos, radio, TV, the Internet, and so on.
Each revolution is characterized as creative destruction the buggy whip industry is wiped out, but a larger industry is created.
Here is where correlation is confused with causation: the fact that this cycle has played out in the recent past does not make it a Law of Nature, i.e. a predictable manifestation of causation.
Which brings us to AI. AI is different: it doesn’t generate a need for more human labor as it expands, it replaces human labor. This is its implicit raison d’etre, reason to exist.
The rewards go to the initial innovators’ corporations and speculators, and the consequences fall on a society ill-prepared to assess them, much less limit them.
AI is different in another way: it generates a compelling facsimile of human characteristics and interactions, facsimiles of thought and knowledge that we take as
Why Markets Can’t Price the Real Risk of AI
