Technoptimism

In the past few decades, we have lived through the era of technologically optimistic utopia, with most people enthusiastically adopting new technological innovations as if they were stepping stones towards progress. However, recent developments have led to questions about the role and impact of technology on society.

Technology has eliminated the need for intermediaries in various areas, such as culture transmission, value exchange, entertainment, goods and services provision, and even product manufacturing. At the same time, society perceives that technology, when it reaches scenarios once only imaginable in science fiction, clashes with everyday values and realities. The powerful institutions, left with the need for intermediaries to control, are wary of technologies that could potentially undermine their authority.

Any new development that threatens the role of intermediaries may not be viewed favorably: technology is no longer seen as a neutral tool that can be used for good; instead, every technological advance comes with its own ideology and political agenda. The era of optimistic techno-utopianism has given way to tech skepticism.

This shift in perception is now reflected in society, which sees how traditional administrative and economic powers are lagging behind in the adoption of new technologies while also adopting developments that society only begins to understand. For example, tax authorities using AI for data analysis to detect tax evasion, while still presenting tax forms on a Windows 95-style interface, is an example of the inconsistencies we’re discussing. Who defines the direction in which technology progresses and who benefits from it are important questions that need to be addressed.

The emergence of AI, a tool previously used in scientific research, large corporations, and administration, now available to the general public for the first time, could be compared to the industrial revolution in its potential impact on individual productivity. An increase in individual productivity is an increase in power, which poses a risk or uncertainty for established powers.

Early AI tools have been primarily launched by startups and open-source communities, with faster development speeds than any monopolistic market strategies aimed at capitalizing on them (contrary to the trend with large tech companies). After the media hype, established players have been slow and reluctant to present their projects. Who controls this advance, and for what purpose are questions we should be concerned about, as much as the governments and some corporations are about controlling it. Large structures can easily answer these questions for themselves, as they operate with a vertical organizational structure and a unified voice. However, finding ways to ask these questions horizontally, within society, is more challenging.

Faced with such profound changes -technologies that surpass the functions of corporations and governments- it’s dangerous if there are no structures, mechanisms for circulation, and confrontation of ideas in society. In other words, if society is only articulated through state administration/intermediary (controlled by a limited group) – the technical development will not benefit the majority but a few who control the means of research, development, and political power.

Álvaro de María’s book “La Filosofía de Bitcoin” argues that we are facing a crisis of the State, an inevitable crisis because the dynamics governing it, following its principles, make reform impossible and opposition futile, as the State leaves no space for any action against it. The only political action against the State, according to him, is cryptographic – that which the State cannot interfere with. However, he did not see a way or even a possible space for its development until the Internet arrived as the space, and Bitcoin as its best weapon.

Given the magnitude of the coming advances, no one will be left untouched; the era of “don’t get involved in politics” is over. Politics is not the State, political parties, lobbies, or any political, religious, or economic power structure. Politics is based on social interaction and can be exercised in connected networks for action and confrontation of ideas and interests beyond entertainment. We need to make this leap, stay updated, and help others do the same, if we don’t want to become millions of kayakers drifting in a river of innovation.