Pessimist's "Oh No" Debunked

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An excerpt in the Atlantic magazine from Yuval Noah Harari’s book, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", suggests that technology favors tyranny, and that liberal democracy could lose out to authoritarianism because the tyrant can make better decisions:

"If you disregard all privacy concerns and concentrate all the information relating to a billion people in one database, you’ll wind up with much better algorithms than if you respect individual privacy and have in your database only partial information on a million people."

My reaction is: unlikely.  That's because of one magic word: freedom.  Collecting data is one thing; the mind at liberty to sift through options based on that data--without prejudice--is another.  An authoritarian leader, even with superior data, is blind to most options, since few would suit his malign interests; he will tend to choose poorly.

Freedom is based on fairness, the understanding among citizens that all members and their opinions are of equal value.  We agree to our society's rulebook, or if we don't, we agree to how rules are changed.  We thus have rights and are expected to think independently; and independent thinkers = freed minds.

Having many opinions focused on an issue, if all facts are well known and all options considered, usually means making good decisions.  Here is one prediction-based website for example, that crowdsources opinion.

With that in mind, here are a few quotes from Mr. Hariri's article and my reactions:

 "Remember that the Internet, too, was hyped in its early days as a libertarian panacea that would free people from all centralized systems—but is now poised to make centralized authority more powerful than ever."

In some parts of the world there will be much foolishness in this regard (the digital realm used for ill).  Societal norms like tolerance, and equality for all, can take many generations to become established, especially given centuries of authoritarian tradition.  But the western world and its democratic allies will almost certainly avoid centralization.  There will be setbacks, but the progressive march towards freedom will continue.  Here's one way that might unfold.

 "Just think of the way that, within a mere two decades, billions of people have come to entrust Google’s search algorithm with one of the most important tasks of all: finding relevant and trustworthy information. As we rely more on Google for answers, our ability to locate information independently diminishes."

Isn't this confusing the access to answers with the ability to ask questions?  Sure, we use a super-fast encyclopedia these days, but we still have to know how to look up a subject/ask for our answer.

"Humans are used to thinking about life as a drama of decision making. Liberal democracy and free-market capitalism see the individual as an autonomous agent constantly making choices about the world. ... What will happen to this view of life as we rely on AI to make ever more decisions for us? Even now we trust Netflix to recommend movies and Spotify to pick music we’ll like. But why should AI’s helpfulness stop there?"

Ummm..., doesn't Spotify represent randomization and novelty, rather than choice?  As for Netflix, isn't it like an olden-day librarian telling you which shelf of books to investigate?

"....It’s not so hard to see how AI could one day make better decisions than we do about careers, and perhaps even about relationships. But once we begin to count on AI to decide what to study, where to work, and whom to date or even marry, human life will cease to be a drama of decision making, and our conception of life will need to change. Democratic elections and free markets might cease to make sense. So might most religions and works of art. Imagine Anna Karenina taking out her smartphone and asking Siri whether she should stay married to Karenin or elope with the dashing Count Vronsky."

Not going to happen.  Humans desire agency.  They want to decide.  They aren't about to abandon that thrill.

"If we invest too much in AI and too little in developing the human mind, the very sophisticated artificial intelligence of computers might serve only to empower the natural stupidity of humans, and to nurture our worst (but also, perhaps, most powerful) impulses, among them greed and hatred."

This makes sense, to a point.  I think "the natural stupidity of humans" is uncalled for, and overdone.

"Yet their true business isn’t merely selling ads. Rather, by capturing our attention they manage to accumulate immense amounts of data about us, which are worth more than any advertising revenue. We aren’t their customers—we are their product."

Actually, the AI in Google's algorithms are currently offering me ads touting impossibly expensive real estate when, a month ago, I simply wanted to know what the going price of large parcels of land was in a specific state for an article on this blog.  This kind of thing represents wallpaper to be ignored.  If a few customers click on such ads, so what?  As for an advanced, future AI, there will likely be a human backlash, and new rules governing its use.

"Liberalism reconciled the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, the faithful with atheists, natives with immigrants, and Europeans with Asians by promising everybody a larger slice of the pie."

Actually, I would say that what Liberalism offers is fairness.  Ideally, everybody has a more or less equal chance to claim their rightful due, and slowly but surely we are progressing towards that ideal.  There is simply no fairer way to arrange society.  A progressive justice that enables freedom is the way humans one up any squaring-the-circle AI.