Only Billionaires Can Afford Techno-Optimism

I have just read the third or fourth article saying that technology is going to provide an abundance of everything and we’re all going to be absolutely thrilled. We are post-scarcity according to these writers, and into the era where people can stop working and unleash their creativity. As the economy cools, these articles are accelerating. The first one I noticed was a New York Times opinion piece I read in 2019. Their writers, mostly billionaires, are coming from something called the Techno-optimist movement.

The latest one I think was from Vinod Khosla, the same venture capitalist who wouldn’t let people walk across his beach in Half Moon Bay when I lived there. Khosla says artificial intelligence will cause great abundance — more than enough to share.

I am wondering how he is going to learn to share the abundance brought about by technology and artificial intelligence if he couldn’t even share the sand on his beach to let people walk across it. He went so far to privatize his own beach as to defy a California law that provides everyone access to the California beaches. Not your biggest sharer.

I also read Marc Andreessen’s Manifesto. Andreessen, a billionaire married to another billionaire, always writes about techno-optimism. I’d be optimistic too if I had bought the most expensive home in California last year. He says if we don’t continue advancing technology exploration we will die. He doesn’t even promise abundance; he just says we have to be growing for our own survival.