IP23: Is there a political "lane" for techno-optimism?
Why a pro-tech politics can reach well beyond libertarianism
Thanks for all of the comments about the past few newsletters. Regarding IP22, different tools (such as scenario planning) are becoming increasingly essential when dealing with multi-faceted risks. Tools designed for periods of certainty are much less relevant in periods of dynamic uncertainty.
This week’s newsletter considers the growth of the techno-optimism movement in politics. It’s one that I think is a good thing - largely because a negative approach to tech from politicians can only ever be one-dimensional and self-limiting. I make the case that a more positive (or realistic) approach to tech should stretch well beyond libertarianism and offers potential for the centre-right and centre-left to build a more compelling vision and to develop a more compelling politics.
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Is there a political “lane” for techno-optimism
Techno-optimism has been through a bit of a rough political patch. After the early years of tech utopianism that followed the growth of the internet, political discourse became tilted towards how tech could be regulated and how its negative impacts could be addressed. At best, politics became sceptical about the promise of technology and, in many cases, became downright hostile.
In this Inflection Point, I will argue that politics needs to redress the balance from tech negativism towards tech-optimism or, more likely, tech-realism. This optimism will see the ability of tech to tackle societal problems that had previously been regarded as intractable, rather than the ability for tech to provide a utopian “good life”. And this tech-realism will allow politics to shift towards a broader vision of societal change and away from the political diarchy of bureaucratic managerialism or negative populism that has characterised Western politics for some time.
Some of Silicon Valley’s most identifiable figures have begun to make the case for returning tech-optimism to political life. They published the Techno Optimist Manifesto late last year and have already started to fund candidates, generally on the libertarian right. An Axios story recently also said that “techno-optimists” were drawn together under an umbrella ideology that included, amongst other things, “unfettered free speech [and being] pro-artificial intelligence.” They listed Bari Weiss, Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi amongst its adherents.
This move towards techno-optimism is important, but does its association with ultra libertarianism box it into a corner? This newsletter (if you will forgive me being more sprawling than usual) makes the case that marrying tech-optimism, or at least tech-realism, with politics across the political spectrum is essential for restoring a defining vision to politics, rebuilding trust in institutions and helping to revive civic engagement.
Conversely, a politics that continues to be driven by hostility to tech is one that is effectively engaging in unilateral political disarmament, ignoring that technological advance will be essential to helping politicians deliver ambitious societal goals. Politicians looking to define themselves might consider making a case for tech-optimism and the good that tech can do.
Harold Wilson, JFK and what techno-optimism once was
Harold Wilson, the pipe-smoking, tinned-salmon eating, brandy-sipping Prime Minister who dominated British politics from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, might not be the first name that comes to mind when discussing techno optimism. But the speech that he is perhaps most famous for could be one of the centrepieces of the creed.
In September 1963, Wilson, who was then Opposition Leader, stood up in the Northern seaside resort of Scarborough (again perhaps not a natural home for techno-optimism) to give one of the best remembered and most important British political speeches of the post war era. He talked about the “white heat of the technological revolution” and how that revolution could transform living standards for the better.
This technological revolution, he argued, was making it:
“physically possible, for the first time in human history, to conquer poverty and disease, to move towards universal literacy, and to achieve for the whole people better living standards than those enjoyed by tiny privileged classes in previous epochs”.
The aim of the speech was simple - to harness technological innovation and the possibilities that it contained to create a compelling and optimistic political vision. Years later, Wilson would opine that his goal of the speech was to change the symbol of the British Labour movement “from the cloth cap to the laboratory coat.” And politically, the optimism of the speech served its purpose - his party would end their thirteen year exile from power in 1964.
This was very much a time of politicians embracing the power of technology and harnessing this towards an optimistic vision. Most famously, of course, JFK married technological advance in the United States with the ambition to put a person on the moon. He said that:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone.
The advance of technology happening as we speak should have us equally excited as these politicians half a century ago. But techno-optimism is seldom heard in modern politics, with many politicians seeking to define themselves by their opposition to tech. Indeed, in the United States, hostility to tech unites figures generally at polar extremes, such as Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley.
But politicians could be missing a beat in not linking their political vision more to the potential of technology? Techno-optimism shouldn’t be restricted to libertarians. A more realistic form of techno-optimism could be used by politicians to build a more compelling vision; to help societies re-engage the citizenry and rebuild trust.
Techno Optimism In Perspective
Before considering what a pro-tech politics might look like, it’s worth considering the benefits that technology has already delivered.
Global poverty has reduced by over one billion since 1990 (chart via Visual Capitalist):
A substantial growth in access to information and accumulated knowledge that the internet has brought, combined with a reduction in global poverty, has led to a dramatic increase in global literacy:
Life expectancy has also dramatically increased, with advances in health technology having a genuine impact on how diseases (from cardiovascular disease, to cancer and diabetes) are treated and expected chances of survival.
These benefits are without even considering the dramatic boosts in productivity and the opening of new markets that the internet has delivered. All of these benefits have been directly related to improvements in technology and innovation developed by big (and small) tech companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. But these substantial achievements have also been accompanied by a growth in political scepticism towards technology and a growth in political hostility towards tech.
We also know that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to substantially accelerate these benefits that technology has already delivered. In many cases, for example, AI has already proven to be effective at early diagnosis of life-threatening diseases and more recent developments are even more impressive. Another report shows that AI has the potential to help economies reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change. And as Marc Andreessen famously argued in his essay AI Will Save The World:
What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the stars – much, much better from here.
Given this cause for optimism, it’s surprising that more politicians haven’t attached themselves to the benefits of tech as a means to achieve a bold vision, of the kinds set out by JFK and Wilson. To consider why, it’s worth considering what happened to the first wave of internet tech optimism.
The rise and fall of internet techno-optimism
Elements of the early wave of tech-optimism that followed the birth of the internet were verging from hubristic to wildly utopian. The most well-known ultra utopian example being John Perry-Barlow’s Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, which was published in 1996.
“Third Way” politicians were also eager to attach their vision to the benefits that tech could bring. Bill Clinton’s March 2000 speech to Johns Hopkins University is best remembered for his (ludicrously optimistic) line that China seeking to censor the internet would be like “nailing jello to the wall.” But the rest of the speech was full of declarations of optimism. Clinton talked about the internet delivering an age in which “economic innovation and political empowerment… will inevitably go hand in hand” and in which “ “liberty will spread by cell phone and cable modem”.
Clinton’s “Third Way twin”, Tony Blair, was equally enthusiastic about the internet. Indeed, one of the most optimistic (and most impressive) publications about AI from politicians has been the joint report published last year by Blair and his one-time adversary, William Hague, which proclaimed that AI could represent “a new national purpose” for the UK.
Since the heady days of the early 2000s, political enthusiasm for the internet and for tech generally has diminished considerably. Many industries who were disrupted by the internet ended up fighting back, with the news media in particular being happy to aim punches at the tech companies and use their front pages to deliver these punches. Most politicians might have liked tech, but they like positive press coverage even more.
Undoubtedly, some negative impacts of the internet and user-generated content became clear in the intervening decades and many politicians also pivoted to a default position of techno-specticism. Even in areas such as AI, many politicians seemed much more comfortable emphasising the risks, rather than talking about how states could harness AI to deliver bold national missions.
It’s unlikely that politicians are going to renew the dewy eyed tech utopianism of politicians at the turn of the century. We know so much more about downsides and unintended consequences than we did then. And the need for a governmental role is clearer. But there is clearly scope for politics to embrace a more realistic, rather than utopian, form of positivity towards tech. This will ground their promises within technological reality and look to harness tech to boost living standards, deliver a sizeable increase in real wages and create skilled work
Trust in politicians across geographies has been falling for many years and populism has become a global phenomenon partially based on perceived non-delivery and stagnating real incomes. A more positive approach to tech could help politics deliver a positive vision, rather than a list of things politicians are against.
A techno optimism for the centre-right and the centre-left
A clear lane for techno-optimism has already been carved out on the libertarian right. This, clearly, fits well with a political approach that is sceptical of regulation of all kinds and believes in allowing the market free rein.
But libertarianism is not the only political avenue for techno-optimism. Take some of the priorities of much of the modern left, such as tackling climate change; building good quality public services; reducing inequality; and ensuring that people are able to enjoy a retirement in dignity. In all of these cases, advances in technology are going to make these goals much easier to achieve than a politics that is hostile to technology.
Similarly, objectives of parts of today’s right can be seen as being hand-in-hand with technological advance, even though many of these same politicians of the right are amongst the most hostile to tech. Pursuit of economic growth and greater productivity, for example, will be much easier to achieve in countries that embrace and harness emerging technologies. Attempts to control immigration and reform welfare, both priorities of much of the modern right, will surely be made more realistic when combined with tech-based solutions.
Across the political divide, it is also much easier to see technology as a solution to many of society’s more enduring challenges. A more engaged citizenry, with a more responsive government using technology to engage more effectively, could help to reverse the declining trust in institutions. Larger democracies could look to the likes of Estonia and Taiwan, who have effectively used technology to increase social trust, build social cohesion and to give citizens a more active role in decision-making.
Moving on from techlash to tech-realism? A challenge for politicians and for tech companies.
A politics that sees tech merely as a problem or “something to regulate” is, by its very nature, unnecessarily limiting the political imagination and limiting the ability of politics to deliver positive change. By contrast, a politics that embracing the potential of tech to tackle previously intractable problems is increasing the possibilities of politics, as well as of technology.
Clearly people who work in tech have a role to play in ending the “techlash” chapter and starting a more positive discussion around tech and politics. This will partially come from working to carve a new consensus about how emerging technology can be regulated in a way that ensures safety, whilst maximising potential benefits. Crucially, tech needs to recreate a drumbeat that reminds politicians that tech can be an important ally in tackling important social, environmental and economic challenges and delivering a vision that politicians can articulate.