AI Politics & NY 12
“The American technocrats have drawn an enchanting picture of a society in which, with the abolition of the market, technicians would find themselves all-powerful, and would use their power in such a way as to give to all the maximum leisure and comfort possible. This idea reminds us, by its utopianism, of that of the enlightened despotism which our forefathers cherished. All exclusive, uncontrolled power becomes oppressive in the hands of those who have the monopoly of it.” – Simone Weil, La Révolution prolétarienne, 1933
Yesterday, a Congressional election in New York glaring revealed how politics, most especially today's campaign process, is entirely incapable of dealing with the issues of technology. New York’s 12th Congressional district was a race between two members of New York’s established political class: the first, a state representative; the second a staff member of the retiring Congressman.
Alex Bores, the State Rep, recently sponsored legislation in Albany titled, "Responsible AI Safety and Education Act." The summary states the bill “implements transparency requirements for developers of AI models; requires the establishment of an office for oversite of AI model developer transparency and reporting; makes related provisions.” It's basically the industrial regulatory structure of the last century dusted-off for this century's technology.
While transparency is necessary for all things public, it's only a first step. Without other actions, transparency is insufficient. The best example of this is campaign finance and lobbying transparency, both proved completely incapable of preventing both processes being dominated by a handful of large corporate interests. The bill creates another regulatory bureaucracy, when over the last century, experience showed with every bureaucracy established for industry oversite, the industry became overseer.
The Post has a not bad piece on the election, which turned into a money contest with two AI companies, Open AI and Anthropic, on either side. The Post says at least $26 million was spent “on television ads that put AI at the center of the race.” The idea this issue can be illuminated for any sort of discussion, much less any enlightenment, with 30 second ads is simply ludicrous. I suppose advertising Bores previously received money from crypto-swindler Bankman-Fried might be considered talking about AI, even though crypto’s not any kind of intelligence.
The Post writes,
“Bores has also had deep-pocketed super PACs in his corner, including AI interests — something the OpenAI allies gleefully point out. A super PAC funded heavily by Anthropic, Open AI’s most prominent rival, has spent more than $4 million in television ads supporting Bores, according to AdImpact. Total spending from Anthropic’s allies for Bores exceeds $10 million. Crypto tycoon Chris Larsen also committed more than $3 million to support Bores.”
In the end, both AI funded candidates claimed they would be the champion “AI regulator,” showing the complete impotence of advocating century old industrial regulatory processes as any sort of solution to democratizing the development of compute.
The Congressional staffer, in addition to OpenAI, had “the endorsement of much of the state’s Democratic political class, including (Gov) Hochul, former mayor Mike Bloomberg, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, Hoylman-Sigal and Nadler (the retiring Congressman) himself.”
The staffer won in a district the Post describes as “some of the richest and most conservative (by Manhattan standards) parts of the island. Large swaths of the district on the city’s Upper East and Upper West sides voted for former governor Andrew M. Cuomo in last year’s mayoral election.” All and all, not a lot you want deciding much of anything.
Most of the greatest political questions of today, really of the last two centuries, concern technology. Compute and the present generation marketed as AI is the latest. To date, the greatest problem in regards to any politics of technology is politics is overwhelmingly reactionary. Politics reacts to technology once established, not as an active force shaping, designing, and implementing.
Industrial technology completely redefined society, yet politics only reacted, thus options were already limited. The easiest example of this is organized labor. Industrial technology created a new mass labor force. In reaction, organized labor was born. While organized labor provided value in regards to working conditions and compensation, it was entirely inadequate as a means to shape the technology itself or providing any value in the variety of ways any given technology might be implemented.
The greatest problem to developing a politics of technology are our agrarian institutions of government, which were literally steamrolled by industrial technology. We need new, more participatory institutions and processes, a politics not presented with technology as fait accompli, only to be reacted to, but politics as part of a technological process that grows and evolves with constant societal input and feedback. The only way this is possible is if people, citizens, are built into the processes as active components.