Much has been said about AI. Most recently The Techno Optimist Manifesto from Marc Andreessen made waves in the media. But as with everything there is also backlash, some dismissing it as nonsense. Over the last few years the thinking on AI in the creative field has shifted tremendously. The initial feeling, to which some cling to this day, was that it is a nice tool, but the creatives like writers and programmers are safe for at least a decade. Now many are fearful that we are not that far from doom to these professions and many more will follow. I don't think this is completely off the mark, arrival of AI is going to have no less of an impact like Industrial Revolution had, we live in interesting times indeed.

When I first saw The Techno Optimist Manifesto, it reminded me of the old days where art styles and others would make manifestos to declare what they are about. Honestly we need more of that then the ambiguous movements that are dime a dozen these days and shape shift constantly. So I was pretty excited to delve into and maybe find something to get behind. Something, as the title suggest, positive. Positive outlook which is very much lacking as our civilization is definitely pass its cultural zenit.

I would highly recommend that you give it a read as well. Though upon completing reading it I would suggest that you start with The Meaning of Life section first, as it provides an important disclaimer. Most of my comments that follow are due to lacking that disclaimer at the beginning and poke into the weaknesses of this manifesto which are not for this manifesto to fill.

The first two sections Lies and Truth, did indeed fulfill the promise. I was actually astounded what a positive impact they had on me. After all the demoralization attempts through my life it was a breath of fresh air.

The third section, Technology, is what ruffled many feathers, especially among those advocating for de-growth and all similar activists. As this sections advocates for constant growth, it follows many economists mantra that the line must go up and up. History shows us this just is not possible. Even for technology, it can turn backward as we have seen through history, dark ages and even antiquity, we are learning that our ancestors might have had some very advance technology at one point, before it was lost. In some cases we can't even reproduce it today. Yet, those that opposed to this lack imagination as there are many ways to keep on growing. What metrics we use is one factor, another is that we have yet to leave this planet and just in our solar system there is so many resources, the only thing we need to do is reach out for them, for that we need to grow (at least in the critical space program section), or we are risking getting into situation that we loose the technology needed to get in our life times.

Second problem with the Technology section is that it sees that all the problems solvable with technology. It is right that many indeed are, especially the global ones. But I think there are limits, often of our own making (finances, political will) and in some cases things could be made much worse by technology (excessive urbanization, bad actors, etc.). I do think that especially in terms of spirituality and culture technology can be at best an assistant. It is easy to see in the areas that require technology, for example art or creative writing. In both cases technology has made it easier than ever to create in this area. We are also increasingly seeing art and stories created by AI. Right now there is a need for human input, technology can become an inseparable assistant that can help reach us a new height of excellence, it can even help in the creative process, but it must never become the dominant creator. Not just for its own purposes (as not to stagnate due to lack of new input), but for the mental health of those human creators and hence from that the death of intellectual progress of humanity and death of cultures around the world. Why cultures? While technology might help to conserve them and for some even proliferate, there is a need to transfer this culture on new generations and experience learning it and performing it, is significant in many ways (at the very least bonding between people and in some cases spirituality). The cultural crisis that we are experiencing today is made much worse because of technology and I do not think that this is a problem that technology can solve, or it could, but I dare not think of the price for that.

The Markets section has been super interesting and in current culture surprising by rejecting socialism and similar ideologies. It would be simple to take the failed approach of the central planners of the past (watch Adam Curtis' Pandora's Box documentary series for interesting insights on this topic). Many great points in this section with which I wholeheartedly agree. I would only add here that today we have almost lost the free markets. For example, if we look on charts that compare worker productivity and wages, we see that something is very wrong, other charts it gets only stranger. In my personal opinion, for more reason than this, we need figure out a system in which it is possible again to maintain a nice family with at least 2 children on one parent's income and this needs to be the lower middle class standard. This I believe is the key cultural/economical issue that needs to be solved else all is lost, but that is for another post. Finally the section ends in a way justifying its previous call for infinite growth and taking the infinite game approach to building business.

The infinite growth and markets combination is further expanded in the next section, The Techno-Capital Machine. My only issue here, for which I have mixed feelings, is the believe in accelerationism. The problem is that through human history change has been slow and took generations, only recently can things change completely in matters of years or months. This puts a lot of pressure on society and I fear that it won't take long till something snaps. Yet, especially in fields like medicine we want faster progress and lack of progress literally means dead people. What is missing here is sensible restraint. This suffers from the same problem like AI development, but we need those developing technologies to have broader horizons and be learned as to what can be possible impacts and be in a position to delay or slowly roll out the changes over period of time as to soften the impact, as a side benefit we could get less buggy software. But the markets won't allow for that as if you don't release the new function today, your competition will do so tomorrow. In this case I think the solution could be to refocus on smaller communities that could support each other and become more resilient in face of change as the key survival necessities and support is kept local, independent of the wider happenings in the world.

As much as I want to agree with the next section about Intelligence, it is true only in peaceful and stable societies. In war, excluding weapons of mass destruction, it is the side that has more resources and people to throw into the fight that wins. It is more complex then that, but not by much. Also by statistics half the world is bellow average intelligent. A lot of this can be fixed by proper education and culture, but the current Western culture is focused on producing consumers above everything else which creates a great problem for the future. Augmented intelligence as proposed here is useless if the target individual can't process it critically and in essence makes them just into a drone.

Energy is life.

Energy and Abundance sections, are well crafted and positive.

We believe the ultimate payoff from technological abundance can be a massive expansion in what Julian Simon called “the ultimate resource” – people.

Ultimately the believe in people is what drives me to work on LU, where we want to get them payed for their work so that they can hopefully refocus on creative endeavors as many menial work areas get eliminated by advancing technology.

Not Utopia, But Close Enough, the next section very much emphasizes how the manifesto sees itself. I think that would be more true if it could admit that technology won't be able to solve everything then I would be much happier with this document.

We believe that we are, have been, and will always be the masters of technology, not mastered by technology. Victim mentality is a curse in every domain of life, including in our relationship with technology – both unnecessary and self-defeating. We are not victims, we are conquerors.

Becoming Technological Supermen section underlines my biggest problem with this document. While I agree with the points here, I do think that they are forgetting to learn from the past mistakes, to potentially get inspired from past and pay respect. The unchained drive forward I feel is dangerous. The conquerors mindset is refreshing and I will adopt what is written here to face off against the "victims" who constantly try to demoralize me, yet while I'm fine with overcoming nature and being the apex predator (time to hit the gym), I deplore the view that it can create, for myself with all of this, I won't look down on nature, I respect and keep a watchful eye. For as history has shown, its power is much more than we can control today, but we can overcome most of its challenges and even if we had the power to conquer it completely the respect is still needed.

Technological Values section sums up the values of the manifesto, all of which I agree with and I'm glad that someone else took the time to put them all together. The next section, The Meaning of Life, is a disclaimer to what this manifesto is missing and what it is. In essence there is the spiritual/political element missing. If it would be more up and make the exception for these things in the previous sections that would it probably more approachable for many who won't read down here.

The Enemy, section I think really underlines why there is such a strong reaction from some against it. I think the following two paragraphs are telling:

Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like “existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social responsibility”, “stakeholder capitalism”, “Precautionary Principle”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, “risk management”, “de-growth”, “the limits of growth”.

This demoralization campaign is based on bad ideas of the past – zombie ideas, many derived from Communism, disastrous then and now – that have refused to die.

Previously I mentioned that there needs to be some ethics and broader look that people creating in technology need, something that you would describe as the mentioned "tech ethics". I want to be clear that often we have seen these nice sounding words hide under it more sinister goals and impacts. In my case I'm advocating for technologists to be more of Polymaths than anything else. That I believe is the missing piece. It is pretty admitted that this is only materialistic manifesto and that you need something more in the spiritual, ethical and political realm (as long as it isn't socialism derivative it should be compatible).

This manifesto could be split into two parts. The first kind of brings the good message, but it suffers due to its absolutism in language that technological advance is the savior. The second part starts by admitting that it is not as absolute as it sounds at first. Most of my comments are to that first part and I think the language could be improved there or maybe it could start with The Meaning of Life section, or at least the following line/disclaimer:

Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.

So after finishing the manifesto I have to say that it has left a significant impact on me. I might not be as unrestricted in approaching technology and markets like Techno-Optimists, but given what we face this might push us back to proper balance and for me that balance will be provided by my other philosophies that I hold, so for now I can adopt this as my world view. Maybe call my overall world view Traditionalist Techno-Optimist.