A distillation of nonsense

New Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu, interviewed at the Times of India, courtesy Marginal Revolution

Given the potential for AI to exacerbate inequality, how can we redirect technology?

We need to actively steer technological development in a direction that benefits broader swathes of humanity. This require a pro-human approach that prioritises enhancing worker productivity and autonomy, supporting democracy and citizen empowerment, and fostering creativity and innovation.

To achieve this, we need to: a) Change the narrative around technology, emphasising societal control and a focus on human well-being. b) Build strong countervailing powers, such as labour unions and civil society organisations, to balance the power of tech companies, and c) Implement policies that level the playing field, including tax reforms that discourage automation and promote labour, data rights for individuals and creative workers, and regulations on manipulative digital advertising practices.

The language alone is infuriating. Who is this “we?” “A pro-human approach that prioritizes…” just who is doing what here?

The invisible subject is obvious. “We” and the hidden subject of passive voice means state control. And since AI development is an international competition, it means somehow stopping other countries from allowing their AI to develop in the direction of greatest usefulness.

Productivity is exactly what all profit-driven innovation achieves. But how do “we” increase productivity while simultaneously “discourag[ing] automation?” “Supporting democracy?” The same “we” who “steers” the private efforts, private investments, and private property of others to “democracy” is about the most anti-democratic vision I can imagine. Does anyone need to “steer” technology to “foster creativity and innovation?”

The tool is the regulatory state, law, and the industrial policy state. The first two can only forbid activity, reduce the choice set. The third can subsidize, but in practice serves to protect the status quo and political goals. Here is how a “pro-human” approach subsidizes EV chargers: (Judge Glock at WSJ)

In 2021, under the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Congress provided $5 billion over five years to fund a national network of EV charging ports. Almost three years later, the program has created 69 ports, fewer than the rest of the EV sector produces every day. …The delays are due in part to regulations encouraging unionization, as well as the administration’s goal that at least 40% of clean-energy investments benefit “disadvantaged communities,” the areas that need EV chargers the least…

To receive full subsidies, companies must abide by prevailing-wage and apprenticeship standards. But the IRS says companies can avoid penalties for violating these standards if they sign “project labor agreements,” which favor union workers and include “monitoring and administration by union officials.”…

This year, the Biden administration announced another $1.3 billion in grants for alternative fuel stations, but the criteria focus on everything except the stations themselves. Grant applicants are evaluated on whether they use project labor agreements, whether they use a “Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool,” and whether they give priority to “minority-owned businesses” for contracts and “people of color” for hiring.

Oh yes please let’s apply this approach to AI, the one promising technology we have left to spur economic growth.

“We need to: a) Change the narrative”. What can that mean but state-controlled propaganda, indoctrination and censorship? How else does “we” “change the narrative?” “Societal control and a focus on human well-being?” We have “societal” control right now: Our society has over a thousand years built some remarkably good institutions to control and promote innovation, and focus on “human well being.” They include private property rights, a system of rights not permissions, a good legal system, and massive profits for those who make products that improve human well being. “Societal control” is Orwellian doublespeak for “government control.” It’s too bad we don’t have any economists who study societal institutions, and deep historical lessons anymore.

“we need to” “Build strong countervailing powers, such as labour unions and civil society organisations, to balance the power of tech companies…” Labor unions have been around 100 years. They have a strong track record of reducing labor competition from racial minorities, women, and immigrants. On “steering” innovation for greater “productivity?” The recent longshoremen's strike laid that bare. Civil society institutions are (finally) a great idea. But they don’t need a “we” to build them. They just need a little bit of freedom of speech, association, and transaction to build themselves, precisely to disrupt the powerful “we” who is trying to “steer” things in a way that the democratic hoi-polloi don’t like.

Power of tech companies? Yes, Netscape, AOL, and Yahoo have that all sewn up don’t they?

“Policies that level the playing field, including tax reforms that discourage automation and promote labour?” Really? Discourage automation? Is there an economist in his right mind who thinks that progress comes from getting rid of bulldozers and going back to shovels, and then getting rid of shovels and going back to spoons, to “promote labor?” Again, too bad we don’t have economists who study history, how undirected technical change has led to dramatic improvements in welfare for everybody, and how automation has been the key to the whole affair.

“Regulations on manipulative digital advertising practices.” We the aristocracy must make sure that the poor little dears aren’t “manipulated.” This is censorship. Oh, yes, to preserve democracy of course.

Every single word is pernicious.

Granted, one can say slightly inaccurate things during interviews, but this is such a doozy, jam-packed with nonsense — especially from one whose fame comes from the study of “institutions” and deep lessons of history — that it seems fair game.

(More on AI regulation in the same tone here.)