Donald Trump Isn’t the Only Chaos Agent

The tiny staff at Backchannel, the shop tech publication I headed, were deeply shocked by the US election results from November 1989. The day after, an director posted on our Slack that working on a technology account seemed tone-deaf, if never futile. I wrote a column to respond to that urge on a flight from New York to San Francisco, which addressed users as well as myself and my coworkers. Despite the magnitude of this occasion, I argued that the industrial revolution we were experiencing was still the biggest story of our day. Disruptive politicians, perhaps harmful ones, may appear and go—or refuse to come. But the device, the system, the wireless system, and all they entailed were changing humanity, and even what it will mean to become mortal. Our work was to herald that incredible transformation, no matter who was diplomatically in charge. The phone is bigger than Donald Trump, according to my column’s title.

This week, Trump was once again elected president despite … oh hell, I wo n’t go through the litany of what would seem to be slam-dunk disqualifiers. You’ve heard it all, and to the majority of voters it does n’t matter. It’s a remarkable tale, and history will definitely repeat itself over the coming years. Never in a good way, perhaps. For a nation where some expected to honor its upholding values on the occasion of its 250th day, things might turn out very differently. ( In the spirit of unity, I’ll use the “maybe” qualifier since losers should be humble, and who knows what’s ahead. )

Despite what I had in mind in 2016, I’m never letting up. As Stewart Brand once said,” Human nature does n’t change much, science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly”. Science and technology continue to be the areas of greatest effect on our types in the long run. Future generations will look back and see the day as the dawn of the evolution of microchips and neural net program hundreds of years later. And who was the strongman with the endearing scalp who had destroyed the Western Hemisphere’s once-dominant real estate industry? Instead of speaking for a single message in a much larger team, I no longer manage a publication. ( For WIRED’s institutional view, please note the words of my boss, which I endorse. ) But, speaking for myself, I strongly reprise my 2016 statement of purpose, with a little craft: Artificial knowledge is bigger than Donald Trump.

Of program journalists must support Trump’s subsequent presidency rapidly, with continuous demands for accountability. For some of us codgers, this might be the last of our terms in the near future! What transpires in our community and nation will have a greater impact than the most recent versions of Claude, ChatGPT, or perhaps Apple Intelligence. ( Sorry, Tim Apple. ) The knowledge that AI, mixed reality, and quantum computers might one day redefine us wo n’t lessen the pain if you lose access to medical care, your reproductive rights, or find yourself in a detention camp or prison cell as a result of our returning president’s policies.

Moreover, those of us covering software will definitely breeze up reporting on the Trump presidency, policy as often affects the course of technology. ( Remember, the US government produced that thing called the internet. ) Right now a debate is raging about how, or whether, we should regulate or restrain AI, a technology which some refer to as” the last invention”. The new administration’s proposal to nix the intricate professional attempt on AI that Joe Biden mandated is already on the agenda. Some worry that the new government’s mega-adviser Elon Musk—who has his own AI firm and builds Intelligence into his other enterprises, like Tesla and Neuralink—will have an outsize and perhaps improper influence on federal policies and contracts. Additionally, there is a rumor that China’s fierce work in the field are likely to overshadow the action to manage AI. That’s important, because the ground rules of yesterday’s AI, and the quirks of its scientists, may impact whether the worst fears about the tech come true.

That’s why, the day after Donald Trump got reelected, I visited an AI firm and interviewed one of its officials and a major expert. Well, as I returned to work, I had a second thought about the election results and had become depressed. However, I’ll end the article on that business and then work on it for as long as my broken heart endures. AI, after all, is still the biggest history in area.

In my essay about the comparative value of politics and technology, I went into a little more depth in that 2016 post-election row.

Although Donald Trump may not feel as good as it does now, science and technology are both bigger stories. Give it some thought. Who ran Italy when Galileo made his revelations? How did Italy get started next? Who ruled England during the commercial trend? When studying the revolution, one cannot ignore the eccentricities and shortcomings of government officials. In the long run, the world’s Galileos and James Watts have even greater effect than the Napoleons.

Even if whoever occupies the White House has no attention span and boasts of sexual assaults, the fact that I can search for the solution to those questions, which we have given humanity limitless knowledge at the touch of a touchpad, will eventually become recognized as more significant than who is. Even though 9/11 was awful, it is actually more important in the long run that a single company could connect almost everyone on a single company.

John asks,” Would you have written part 3 of Twitter: The Inside Story different, given what you know now”?

Hi, John, thanks for asking. I hope you enjoyed the text. What exactly do you mean by “what I know presently”? Maybe the revelations in what’s known as” The Facebook Papers”, which showed that the company’s researchers were alarmed at the consequences of its policies? Mark Zuckerberg’s transition from a guy to a fashionista?

None of these, in my obviously biased perceive, makes me think that the key factors of the text, and certainly not the narrative circle, have been negated. My story ends a bit before Zuckerberg, captivated by the belief that virtual and augmented reality were the future of computing, changed the company’s name to Meta. The book is framed by the fact that the business now goes by a different name, which is, excuse me, a history of Facebook when it was still known as Facebook. The ending of a book about a well-known company always seems difficult to land, but it does seem to neatly wrap up a time period. And the book’s final scene, where I press Zuckerberg about his choices, appears, to its author at least, as an appropriate flourish. His podcast listeners are just as content as he is moving on, and he now has little patience for such conversations.

You can submit questions to [email protected]. Include the phrase” ASK LEVY” in the subject line.

End Times Chronicle

Goes without saying.

Last but Not Least

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Inside a cybersecurity company’s five-year war against its Chinese attackers.

What’ll happen to EVs? With Elon as his pal, Trump’s views on the electric transition have gotten more complicated.

California’s been written off as a woke wasteland. But it’s still inventing the future.

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