Various prompts I wrote responses to as part of a long interview process.
Prompt 1: Is television valuable, and why? What is your favourite TV show?
I am mostly ambivalent towards television as a medium. I was born in 1999. By the time I came of age, TV had been almost completely supplanted by its children. No one my age watches TV for news anymore, we browse X (formerly Twitter) or other social media. Sports we all watch on streaming sites of questionable legality. As for fictional entertainment, I personally much prefer movies. Is television valuable? It has clearly been immensely valuable historically, both financially and in terms of political/cultural influence. It's undeniable the impact television has had on our world as the Ur-Simulacrum. But the golden age of TV has passed.
Baudrillard wrote about television at length in the 70s. TV as the harbinger of the hyperreal. The simulacrum of television replaces material reality, producing reality instead of representing it. If the news doesn't report on something, did it really happen? "Precession of simulacra." The image precedes the event and legitimatizes it as "real", instead of the other way around. The collapse of all meaning through oversaturation. A war in Cambodia, a sporting event, a jeans commercial— television flattens all of these into the same medium. The screen bombards the viewer with so much information that it all seems equivalent, all existing in the same vague state of hyperreality.
Does this all sound familiar? I'm always thoroughly impressed by how presciently Baudrillard predicted the state of the modern world 50 years ago, using television as his single data point. I wonder what he would say about Twitter and Instagram today.
As for my favorite TV show, it's The Sopranos. (American TV show— I am quite fond of a number of Japanese cartoons.) Yes this is a very cliche choice. But it's just so good. I think The Sopranos is the poster child for the 1999-2013 era of peak TV. The drama, the story, the characters, are all perfect. But more than anything I love the show because it feels so close to home. I grew up in New Jersey. When I visit home I subsist off Italian sandwiches, and every time I drive up I-95 to EWR I think of the Sopranos intro. Chris Moltisanti is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. In my head I truly believe he's literally me (if I was Italian-American and my uncle was a mob boss.) The Sopranos is extraordinary. I don't know if we'll ever see another TV show this good again.
Prompt 2: What are the best books and papers you have read recently?
Jean Baudrillard — Simulacra & Simulation, America
As you may have gathered, I've been on a bit of a Baudrillard kick recently. Like I mentioned in the previous response, I am amazed by his prescience in predicting the state of the modern world and information landscape.
In Simulacra & Simulation, beyond the titular concepts of simulacra and hyperreality, I am fascinated by the concept of implosion. Implosion of meaning as endless information saturation renders genuine communication impossible, implosion of capital as culture is subsumed into the economy and capital consumes itself through endless production and control of data. My favorite essay in the book is Simulacra and Science Fiction.
America I read first and would highly recommend to anyone. Less theory, more casual, a view on America from the outside in. My favorite part of the book is Baudrillard describing driving through the western deserts. "Speed creates pure objects… Speed creates a space of initiation, which may be lethal; its only rule is to leave no trace behind… The superficiality and reversibility of a pure object in the pure geometry of the desert." How beautiful. When I was 19 in Phoenix for a season I felt exactly the same way. I would drive on the interstate at sunset, stare at the desert clouds over the sand, and think about how enormous the sky looked out there.
Rene Girard — I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
Another French guy. This book is about mimetic desire, the scapegoat process, and the origin of myths. The basic premise is that all human desire is mimetic, coveting what is others. This inevitably leads to conflict, or "scandal." This scandal rises in intensity and eventually culminates in an irrational mob, which bands together to lynch one innocent victim— the scapegoat. With the murder of the victim, the tension is relieved, until the process repeats. This scapegoat process is what Girard calls Satan. The prince of this world.
I don't necessarily agree with all of this. I do mostly agree with the premise that desire is mimetic, and this is what leads to all human conflict in this world. As for the scapegoat mechanism, it definitely exists and is extremely powerful, but is it truly the foundation of all myth and the root of all evil? I'm not sure. Sometimes the scapegoat is actually guilty. Not every victim is as perfect and blameless as Christ Jesus.
What I like about this book is that Girard himself is quite relatable to me, as a Christian in a culture ruled by (in my opinion) twisted and perverted Christian values. Nietzsche's philosophy has also been formative to me. I first read Genealogy of Morals when I was 18, and ever since I have struggled with the dichotomy between Nietzsche's master morality of strength and my faith. In the last part of this book Girard explores the same issue. We have gone from unfairly persecuting victims, to blindly worshipping them. Isn't there a synthesis somewhere in between? Girard seems confused about this. As am I.
Prompt 3: Will inequality continue to increase as AI and robots develop? How do you feel about this?
In the near to medium term future, inequality will absolutely continue to increase on both an individual and organizational level as AI and robotics develop. I don't think this is even really debatable. In the far future, things may get very strange. I'm not sure the concept of "inequality between humans" will mean anything by then. How do I feel about this? I'm not completely sure. Let me organize my thoughts on what I roughly believe will happen, then I will decide how I feel about it.
Background Axioms
Capital begets capital. It has its own gravitational pull. Through investment, economies of scale, etc., capital compounds itself. Marx writes about this at length. In a closed system, all capital will eventually coalesce around a few major entities.*
In the past, this gravity has been balanced out by the fact that capital creates demand for labor. Machines (of all sorts) need operators. I think this is a key point. Whether it's an organization, or a proprietary investment process, or a literal machine in a factory, there needs to be a human operating the process at the top level. Historically, the proliferation of new capital has created massive demand for new types of operators (thus driving up wages.) In this way capital and labor have remained in rough equilibrium.
AI, Robotics, and Inequality
The core concept of AI (or automation in general) is "machines operating themselves". Taking the human operator out of the loop. This kills the corrective mechanism on runaway capital accumulation. That is, capital proliferation creating demand for labor. Once the progress of automation technology outpaces the demand for labor that it creates, we are inevitably on the path towards 100% automation, and thus capital singularity.**
There is a minimum capability line for class mobility. Above this line, you are able to leverage technology to create and capture value. You have the capability to "operate the machine," if you will. Above this line, your labor has value and you can spend it in exchange for capital. Below this line, you can and will be automated away, into the permanent underclass. This line is rising every day.
This is the root cause of the rising inequality that we have seen and will continue to see in the future. As technology improves and the capability of automated machines grows, the percentage of people capable of creating actual value through their labor will steadily decrease, tending towards zero in the limit. Ours is a winner-take-all system***. Capital will consolidate around those with existing capital and/or increasingly rare capability. Singularity.
The Far Future (Property Rights In the Limit)
Let's take a step back. Or rather, forward. Assuming what I've written above is true, what happens in the limit? Right now, plumbers, entrepreneurs, ML researchers, these roles for example are not automatable. But what happens when AI gains the capability to control humanoid robots, or operate businesses, or recursively self-improve? What happens when we reach true AGI and thus 100% automation? Will all capital truly coalesce into a single hypercorporation? A black hole of infinite production, owned by a single person?
I think this is obviously ridiculous. First of all, what will property rights look like in a world like this? In a post-AGI world where all production is controlled and orchestrated by inhuman superintelligences, what does the concept of "ownership" even mean? Can a sufficiently advanced intelligence (artificial or otherwise!) even be considered property? I don't think so. Let's say we actually manage to create Skynet. Do you really expect Skynet to honor your 2020s era OpenAI stock certificate?
I think the concept of "private property" will get very weird long before we reach any sort of AGI. It surely will not look like the current system of a signed piece of paper, enforced by the US government. I think the concept of fiat money will break long before then too. Fiat is already starting to break down. The US Dollar means less and less with every passing day. What will "money" even look like in this far future? Bitcoin? Compute? Guns and water?
In this post-AGI future, I'm not sure the concept of inequality (between humans) will mean anything anymore. Or it probably will, but I don't think it will be predicated on ownership of capital like it is now.
Conclusion and Personal Feelings
I don't know what will happen in the far future. I have no idea whether true AGI is even possible. I'm not qualified to speak on that, and I think extrapolating that far out is a fool's errand anyway.
However in the short to medium term, I am quite confident that inequality will continue to increase. Quite sharply. As for how I feel about this, does it even matter? I suppose I am in the acceptance stage of grief. I don't particularly like it, but who am I to stand in front of a runaway freight train? All I can do as an individual is improve myself to the best of my ability, apply to jobs I really want (like I'm doing now), and try to accumulate as much capital as I can before the music stops.
*This effect is exacerbated by the rise of passive investing and index funds. I've previously written an essay on this topic.
**We are already on this path. I would argue that the birth rate collapse across all first world countries blatantly illustrates this. For ten thousand years of human history, labor was the bottleneck; thus the population increased to meet the demand. I don't think this is the case anymore. The world machine doesn't need any more operators.
***I would posit that this is also why the hypergambling attitude is becoming more and more prevalent in our culture.