There are profound consequences to the changing of our oligarchic vanguard. The Rockefellers and the Astors earmarked their philanthropy for civic projects, great buildings, public parks, and endowments for the arts that endure to this day. Meanwhile, Bill Gates tinkers in a lab with fake meat and fixates on the fecundity of sub-Saharan African orphans. The previous generations’ 1-percenters were industrial tycoons and developers and bankers; they interacted with people, not computers. They dealt with tangible assets, not software. They understood their fellow humans in a way that escapes today’s ruling class; their spoils ultimately led to tremendous public goods that enrich our lives for generations. Meanwhile, the modern oligarchs are building peasant-proof bunkers, flanked by 24/7 security teams that would make the Mossad blush. Their efforts to expand data centers are being crushed by a populist revolt, and they’re largely viewed with a level of skepticism, contempt, and vitriol that no other aristocracy has endured since Robespierre.
This is their own undoing, of course. They haven’t invested in American goodwill in the same way that our elder elites have. Look at someone like Rick Caruso. The pitchforks never come for his yacht because he’s created beautiful public squares like the Commons, the Grove, and the Village, where people can take a stroll, enjoy a glass of wine with friends, and get some ice cream; you know…enjoy the day. Rick is a throwback to that old school era of tycoons with a sense of style and an understanding that looks actually do matter, even if you can’t quantify them in a spreadsheet. The tech oligarchs, on the other hand, have often treated us like cattle. And as much as we may indulge in technology, their work product is also viewed with an extreme level of skepticism. We recognize that they’ve essentially turned us into digital drug addicts, and we know that they designed their tech this way, deliberately. They mine our data, they spy on us in our own homes, and while their tech can bring us tremendous benefits, it often feels as though the rewards come at the expense of our own dignity, and they simply see us as lab rats. We have this sinking feeling that all of this tech is simultaneously inevitable…and the end of civilization as we know it.
They’ve sold AI to the public in just about the dumbest way possible; bragging about how many jobs it will replace! For a nerd obsessed with efficiency, this sounds amazing; for a working class father trying to feed his children, this is terrifying. The right pitch for AI is actually quite simple; you brand it as a force multiplier, not a force reduction. This is such an obvious framing for anyone who interacts with more humans than computers on a daily basis, particularly in the arts. Everyone who works in film, television, and advertising (especially still photography) is losing years on their lives over the anxiety induced by how quickly AI is replacing them. It’s a particular gut-punch for creative professionals, given that generative AI essentially amounts to plagiarism and intellectual property theft; the AI models were trained on their IP, and now uses it to replicate and replace their work for a fraction of the cost. The stills industry is cooked, already. Video hasn’t yet crossed the uncanny valley, and AI filmmaking still can’t connect with human emotion, but everyone seems to agree that it will, eventually…and likely sooner than we think.
To be fair, I suppose all creative professionals “train” themselves on their forebears work, right? When you see Alfonso Cuarón’s infamous long take “oners”, all I see is Brian DePalma. How many cinematographers deployed Janusz Kamiński’s signature shutter angle trick in Saving Private Ryan for every action sequence forevermore? But there’s something different about a human brain paying homage to a predecessor, versus artificial intelligence doing it with digital precision. Just as there’s a difference between a Mexican Coke with real cain sugar vs artificial sugar. While we can’t fully legitimize nor rationalize our discriminatory bias, we are human…and humans aren’t rational; this, ultimately, is the core of the conflict with the nerd class.
