Author Jaron Lanier — the accomplished scientist, technologist, virtual reality pioneer and musician — wants people who aren’t techies to understand the concept of singularity, which has mesmerized many of his Silicon Valley colleagues. In his new book “Who Owns the Future?” he writes, “One day in the not so distant future, the Internet will suddenly coalesce into a superintelligent AI
[Artificial Intelligence], infinitely smarter than any of us individually and all of us combined; it will come alive in the blink of an eye, and take over the world before humans even realize what’s happening.”
Lanier continues, “Some think the newly sentient Internet would then choose to kill us; others think it would be generous and digitize us the way Google is digitizing old books, so that we can live forever as algorithms inside the global brain. Yes, this sounds like many different science fiction movies. Yes, it sounds nutty when stated so bluntly. But these are ideas with tremendous currency in Silicon Valley; these are the guiding principles, not just amusements, for many of the most influential technologists.”
Lanier does not subscribe to this apocalyptic scenario. As a down-to-earth humanist on the outer reaches of what graphic novelist Douglas Rushkoff referred to as “Cyberia,” Lanier often finds that his is a lonely voice. Instead of entertaining weirdly intoxicating visions of a post-human future, he argues that scientists and their techie brethren should focus on enhancing human life and bettering society. They should not compound the miserable lot of the global multitudes mired in abominable poverty. Human beings are worthy of a decent future. No genuine economy has any concrete meaning without people.
But could the waves of homeless people who have arisen in the United States and elsewhere in the world be the first inkling of a widening sociopolitical rupture exacerbated by refined technologies? Is the globalization of poverty the inevitable product of technological evolution rampant within hyper-capitalism? Without fundamental changes we are heading toward such a future.
Lanier is repelled by this dystopian prospect. In “Who Owns the Future?” he offers remedies that could perhaps establish a humane information economy capable of sustaining democracy and a vibrant middle class. In his first book “You Are Not a Gadget,” Lanier made it clear that he believes in the innate dignity of human beings. A person must never be reduced to an amalgam of biochemical, mechanical and behavioral processes. Ensuring this compassionate image of humanity within the rush of accelerating technological change will require conscientious conviction: “If we can’t reformulate digital ideals before our appointment with destiny, we will have failed to bring about a better world. Instead we will usher in a dark age in which everything human is devalued.” In his new book, Lanier elaborates a general outline of proposals he believes can help us avoid a dehumanized world.
Information is power: “A Siren Server … is an elite computer, or coordinated collection of computers, on a network. It is characterized by narcissism, hyperamplified risk aversion, and extreme information asymmetry. It is the winner of an all-or-nothing contest and it inflicts smaller all-or-nothing contests on those who interact with it.” These concentrations of information allow Siren Servers “to manipulate the rest of the world to advantage.” Lanier says that this is making for a dangerously skewed economy.
Current technological and economic designs allow Siren Servers to amass power and financial might surreptitiously without reciprocation. Anyone who uses a computer inputs information that goes into some Siren Server’s digital repository. Lanier envisions an arrangement in which anybody generating such information will be paid commensurately for doing so: “In the world of digital dignity, each individual will be the commercial owner of any data that can be measured from that person’s state or behavior. Treating information as a mask behind which real people are invariably hiding means that digital data will be treated as being consistently valuable, rather than inconsistently valuable.”
This is all rudimentary. Lanier admits that there would be bugs to hammer out. The alternative will be a continuation of today’s lopsided affair with guaranteed unpleasant social consequences. One response to growing social inequity could be revolution. He is concerned that this could not only fail to achieve justice but also might allow a new elite to arise from the chaos. He prefers a transition that ensures the greatest good within an environment of technological innovations.
Lanier states, “As technology reaches heights of efficiency, civilization will have to find a way to resolve a peculiar puzzle: What should the role of ‘extra’ humans be if not everyone is still strictly needed? Do the extra people — the ones whose roles have withered — starve? Or get easy lives? Who decides? How?”
In 1985 philosopher, poet and farmer Wendell Berry contemplated a similar question in an essay “What Are People For?” He pondered the fate of those deemed superfluous: “Is their greatest dignity in unemployment? Is the obsolescence of human beings now our goal? One would conclude so from our attitude toward work, especially the manual work necessary to the long-term preservation of the land, and from our rush toward mechanization, automation, and computerization.”
Lanier hopes for a humane digital economy inclusive of people. He is a fascinating technophile whose passion for science and technology has not displaced his deep appreciation for the richness of humanity. A new world wrought by fantastic technological change is coming. If it is to have existential meaning, Lanier contends that human beings must be at the very center of the emerging cybertopia.