The corrosive power of populism – a caveat for all democracies. The one true law of history – that of unintended consequences. The key questions we should be asking today about the consequences of AGI tomorrow. Capitalist democracy needs to serve a broader demographic. How past utopias can provide a vision for the future.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
(The Washington Post, 11 October 2023)
The Israeli historian, author of “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus” ponders why the state of Israel went “missing in action.” While nothing justifies the atrocities committed by Hamas, he observes that “Israelis are paying the price for years of hubris, during which our governments and many ordinary Israelis felt we were so much stronger than the Palestinians, that we could just ignore them.” Pointing out that Hamas never wanted peace (it did everything it could to sabotage the Oslo peace process) and that “history isn’t a morality tale”, he squarely puts the blame of the security failure and dysfunction on the government’s populism. For years, it was repeatedly warned by its own security forces that its policies were endangering Israel and eroding Israeli deterrence at a time of mounting external threats, but it did nothing. His conclusion: “No matter what one thinks of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the way populism corroded the Israeli state should serve as a warning to other democracies all over the world” (gifted article, reads in 7-9 min).
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Niall Ferguson, Law of Unintended Consequences Caused the Great Bond Rout
(Bloomberg, 9 October 2023)
The core argument: “There is only one true law of history, and that is the law of unintended consequences”. It refers to things that happen when they were not supposed to happen, like the recent bond market rout – the biggest in 150 years. The surge in borrowing costs is the unintended consequence of many good intentions, argues Ferguson; yet it is terrible news for most borrowers whose costs will leap upwards (including of course for the biggest one – the US government, faced with the new reality that rising interest rates make deficits consequential). The broader lesson: most grand designs go awry, because there is always a “tendency for one unintended consequence to lead to another in a veritable cascade of unintendedness” (gifted article, reads in 6-8 min).
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Blaise Aguëra Y Arcas and Peter Norvig, Artificial General Intelligence Is Already Here
(Noéma, 10 October 2023)
Not an easy read, but very rewarding: two giants in the field of AI shed light on what AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) means and what it entails. They posit that today’s most advanced AI models have many flaws, but decades from now, they will be recognized as the first true examples of artificial general intelligence. A primer: it is wise to separate “intelligence” from “consciousness” and “sentience.” The (quite obvious) conclusion: “AGI promises to generate great value in the years ahead, yet it also poses significant risks. The natural questions we should be asking in 2023 include: “Who benefits?” “Who is harmed?” “How can we maximize benefits and minimize harms?” and “How can we do this fairly and equitably?” (metered paywall, reads in 7-9 min).
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Chris McGreal, Angus Deaton on inequality: ‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’
(The Guardian, 7 October 2023)
A harsh critic of economics from a Nobel prize winner in economics. Deaton says that most economists have lost sight of their profession’s most important mission: improving people’s lives. He argues that economists must get back to serving society, pointing to the US that in his opinion epitomizes “a predatory brand of capitalism that enriches corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working people”, deepening inequality of wealth and opportunity. There is hope! He asserts that markets break things but can also solve things. The solution is not to abolish capitalist democracy, but to put “the power of competition back in the service of the middle and working classes” (free access, reads in 6-7 min).
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Emily Raboteau, The Good Life – What can we learn from the history of utopianism?
(The Nation, 16 October 2023)
This is a review of “Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life”, a book in which Kristen Ghodsee looks at the past to explore utopian visions for our future. It’s wide-ranging, with alternative ways of building our homes, raising our children, educating our youth, sharing our property, and defining what counts as family. More specifically, Ghodsee argues that we can’t approach the creation of a good or just society without real changes for women, that is: changes that would relieve the pressures of work in the home to the benefit of all (metered paywall, reads in 5-6 min).
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