AI really appeals to a fantasy that I think all of us have to some extent but that powerful people really have, of a world without people in it—because hell really is other people.
This. The AI industry is pushing super hard to make it work, to replace human workers. It’s failing, as AI work is crappier than human work and costs way, way more than human work, but there’s that Ayn Rand fantasy that the ownership class can just shut out the worker class and create an utopia.
I’m reminded of the car factory in which the upper management fired the striking workers assuming they could do the work themselves, only to find that the unskilled labor actually took skill.
I bet Elon or some other rich creep read Atlas Shrugged and thought it was profound lol
In the early 2010s, there was a lot of Ayn Rand fans in the Republican party. I think in the 2012 Republican Primary, the favorite book question either yielded Atlas Shrugged or the Reagan biography.
Eventually, as Steven Colbert would note in The Colbert Report, none of them were chosen, and the Republican party decided reluctantly to support Mitt Romney.
Thiel for sure thinks he’s John Galt.
You can also buy and download books / audiobooks from his website https://craphound.com/ some of them are pay as you want.
For those wondering, the ebooks for Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, With a Little Help from My Friends, and Context are pay what you’d like.
I couldn’t get through Enshittification. It was like reading a reference book after the first half. That said, I look forward to this one.
Mr Doctorov has a nice life where he needs to make no tough decisions. I envy a life without least-worse voting and other harm-reduction efforts, where one can write what he dreams and people will happily consume it.
Why is there always some person hating on Cory when he’s talked about? Astroturfing? He’s the person we desperately need right now and everyone needs to listen to him. And Ed.
Really? Dude has cancer and a kid in college, and yet chooses to write this. I’m pretty sure he has tough decisions. He also is very much not an uncompromising idealist, pointing to very specific solutions and dismissing others.
