Compilations and Thoughts on Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimism
Compilations and Thoughts on Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimism
In case you aren't bored of the techno-optimism debate already...
Insight Axis explores connections between practical philosophy, technology, books, and more. I’m Zan - follow me on Substack.
Dear I.Axers,
Here is your valuable insight for the week:
If you're going to be an optimist, be a knowledge-optimist, not just a techno-optimist.
It's been almost 2 weeks since
published his techno-optimist manifesto and everyone seems to be chiming in. At the time of writing, it's sitting on the landing page of his company, a16z, one of the world’s biggest tech-focused venture capital funds. So there’s clearly a marketing angle. Also, the manifesto isn’t a philosophical essay that’s meant to be logically watertight, so I think Marc's aim here wasn't to defend techno-optimism. It was to sell it. There's no doubt that some of his language is meant to be baiting.But whatever, I'll bite.1
Marc probably anticipated some of the criticism that he’s received. He wrote technically wrong statements like "We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the internet." But I'd rather not focus on criticising these types of mistakes, because I think Marc already knows where he's made factual errors in sacrifice of rhetoric. Besides, everyone else has already dissected these technicalities better than I could.
Instead, I'll respond through 3 lenses. These are not techno-pessimist views - they’re pragmatic augmentations which make techno-optimism work better.
Knowledge-optimism is better than techno-optimism.
The precautionary principle is fundamental to techno-optimistic innovation (we can't be techno-optimists if we're dead).
Culture (collective social knowledge) is a technology that shouldn’t be an afterthought.
Then, I'll highlight some opinions of other Substackers.
Knowledge-Optimism is Better Than Techno-Optimism
Marc says:
"We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology."
…
“We believe intelligence is the ultimate engine of progress.”
Not all problems are materialistic and not all progress is technological. All problems require knowledge2 to solve them - but not all solutions need to be technological. So if we’re going to be optimistic about anything, it should be that we have the potential to create the knowledge to solve all types of problems, not just materialistic ones. Even though technology is a huge part of what we do as a species, we must use our intelligence beyond fuelling just technological progress.
Marc also says:
"Material abundance from markets and technology opens the space for religion, for politics, and for choices of how to live, socially and individually."
I disagree. Suggesting these problems are only soluble once material technology "opens the space" to solve them is empirically wrong. Humanity has grappled with religious, social and political issues long before technology’s surge. Sure, as technology increases our capabilities, we’ll have new moral and societal questions to answer, but implicitly making it sound like technology will make it easier to answer those questions by “opening space” is presumptuous. We should be using our intelligence to create knowledge that helps us solve the thorny problems of how to act and why to value certain things - not just focusing on what to build.
Who knows, maybe we'll just build an AGI that will create all kinds of new knowledge to solve our non-material problems too...
The Precautionary Principle is Fundamental to Techno-Optimistic Innovation (we can't be techno-optimists if we’re dead).
Marc says:
“Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle, which would have prevented virtually all progress since man first harnessed fire.
...The Precautionary Principle continues to inflict enormous unnecessary suffering on our world today. It is deeply immoral, and we must jettison it with extreme prejudice.”
Any game worth playing comes with the risk of losing. But to win, you must not lose so badly that you can never play again.
I agree with Marc and his fellow effective accelerationists (e/accs) that the Precautionary Principle is overplayed. Many people hide behind it to maintain the status quo (for safety, money or power), because they fear change and failure. Instead, we should embrace the idea of tinkering, trying new things, and learning from mistakes.
But calling the Precautionary Principle "deeply immoral" is a bit dramatic. By saying this, Marc fails to see its power as a friend of progress. The Precautionary Principle is a tool like any other - it's all about knowing when to use it. When it's rightly applied to avoid paths that could lead to irreversible ruin, it fosters optionality. Nassim Taleb made his fortune by doing just this - his precise application of the Precautionary Principle let him exploit optionality in the stock market. He says:
"[The Precautionary Principle] is intended to deal with uncertainty and risk in cases where the absence of evidence and the incompleteness of scientific knowledge carries profound implications and in the presence of risks of "black swans", unforeseen and unforeseeable events of extreme consequence."
Whilst I am a partial techno-optimist, I don’t think we’ll be able to “effectively accelerate” ourselves back from real, catastrophic black swans. That’s why the Precautionary Principle is important. Marc's taken the easy way out by discrediting it entirely. But we can do better by saying that wrong applications of the Precautionary Principle might be immoral, and right applications would let Marc play his techno-optimist game without risking catastrophic ruin. So I invite him to consider applying the Principle with more precision. This would make it a powerful tool and not just another straw-man enemy.
If you must effectively accelerate, at least be sure to do it in the right direction.
Who knows, maybe we'll just build an AGI that will tell us exactly where to exercise precaution, and where to be bold, move fast and break things in the name of progress…
Culture (collective social knowledge) is a Technology that Shouldn’t Be an Afterthought
Marc says:
"We had a problem of starvation, so we invented the Green Revolution.
...
We believe in Milton Friedman’s observation that human wants and needs are infinite.
...
We believe in making everyone rich, everything cheap, and everything abundant.
...
We are materially focused, for a reason – to open the aperture on how we may choose to live amid material abundance."
Making cheap and abundant food is one of our greatest human - and technological - achievements. This technology continues to save precious lives, but it’s now also responsible for killing people because of obesity. To be clear, I support our progress; nobody should die of hunger, even if it means that more people on the other end of the spectrum are overweight. But that doesn't mean obesity isn't a growing problem.3
Here we have the slightest "aperture" into Andreessen's world, where humans lean into their infinite desires in the face of cheap, tasty and abundant food. And to e/acc delight, we’ve also started marketing the techno-optimist solution of using pills like Wegovy and Ozempic to fix obesity. These tablets literally try to let us have our cake and eat it, without solving the underlying issue of how we should live and act in a world of abundance. Fellow knowledge-optimist Naval Ravikant puts it better than I can when he says, “Most of modern life, all our diseases, are diseases of abundance, not diseases of scarcity.” And as I’ve said, I don't think better materialistic technology will give us a solution for this problem.
I think the answer will come from knowledge embodied in a technology called culture.
Unlike Marc and the e/accs, I think the definition of technology extends beyond the material. Our mental constructs are technologies too, because they also give us leverage. Using that definition, I see culture - the set of shared myths and behaviours that we hold in our minds - as technological tools in their own right. They are tools that help us live in harmony, decide our values and guide our interactions with the world. When e/accs focus on material abundance, they neglect updating our cultural myths.
Changing our cultural values and behaviour patterns is not going to automatically follow on from implementing e/acc material technologies. Some cultural change will inevitably be reactive to new technology, but I don't think that we should wait to figure out "how we may choose to live" after we've reached a place of material abundance, as Andreessen suggests. We need to work on it now. That's going to be hard, because people are going to argue about it, but it's definitely worth engaging in the argument rather than just bundling opponents into straw-man enemies like Andreessen has done.
Who knows, maybe we'll just build an AGI that will tell us exactly how to instantly update our collective values and bypass the need for debate...
Anyways, that's all I have to say on it. Let’s move on and see what some other Substackers think.
Substack’s takes on the techno-optimist manifesto
- discusses the manifesto, and then offers a more sensible approach, by showing the importance of policy decisions. He shows how we need to work with regulators and centralised government to make technology work for everyone. He also explains why true sustainability is not “the enemy”, but rather a medium for technological progress.
- writes his appendix to the manifesto, and describes how each technological pursuit comes with a tradeoff. If you agree with the tradeoffs on net balance, you are a techno-optimist by his definition. I think this is a balanced way of thinking about techno-optimism. It helps us consider a technology’s drawbacks so that we can work to mitigate them.
- makes his main point in his subtitle, “when thought leaders can’t stand the heat, they should shut the hell up.” He points out that a lot of Andreessen’s platitudes are true, but not new. He suggests that the totality of Andreessen’s language brings unease and also lets falsehoods slip in.
- gives a short but powerful rebuttal. Marc’s omissions raised Marcus’s eyebrows: “No mention of Cherynobyl [sic], the threat of nuclear war, Thalidomide [bingo!]… no nuance about how, historically, technology sometimes has gone wrong, no acknowledgement that airworthiness regulation keeps airplanes unbelievably safe.”
- probably levels the harshest criticism against Andreessen. Amidst the swathe of ad hominem attacks, he does make some great points including the counter-idea of techno-pragmatism. He argues that trust and safety professionals are not pessimists. They’re just looking at things from the orthogonal fragile-antifragile axis, rather than the optimist-pessimist axis.
- offers a defense of the manifesto that I think is worth considering. He suggests we look at the substance of Andreessen’s ideas (“the kernel of the wheat”) rather than its rhetoric style (“the chaff”). As much as we can do that, I agree that “fears should not freeze society from figuring out the net good for us all. And yes, it generally takes a long time, and yes, there will be societal ills along the way. Mistakes can be made as society tries to figure out all new tech, unintended consequences and all.”
- , who Andreessen lists as a “Patron Saint of Techno-Optimism”, dampen’s his patronage with the suggestion that technology can’t dispel the fog that separates our knowledge of science and markets.
- lays out a few counterarguments such has Andreessen’s focus on the failure of nuclear rather than the success of solar. He also explains how the precautionary principle done right puts a burden of proof - but not a barrier to build - on innovators.
- gives a lovely roundup of the general vibes of the manifesto - agreeing with some bits, and disagreeing with others. Interesting to hear what one VC thinks of another’s philosophy. The rest of his weekly roundup is also worth a read.
- writes a sharp and concise piece, explaining some of the assumptions Andreessen makes about how markets really work - making them seem far more transparent and efficient than they really are.
- felt late to the party writing his response to the manifesto on 19th October - just imagine how late I feel. Whilst he generally acknowledges the power of technology, Maynard felt that the polarising rhetoric of the manifesto detracted from its message.
- joins the ranks of criticism and jibes that pulling the Thalidomide card as a support for precaution completes the contra-Andressen Bingo sheet that he’s been stamping for the past week. Mowshowitz’s main arguments are around people underestimating existential AI risk - something he also thinks Nassim Taleb also gets a little wrong.
- makes the case that Andreessen’s manifesto is aptly timed as a cover for some bad investments in crypto, among other criticisms.
- suggests that Marc is suffering from an ideological fever, which is not a good thing, even in the case of technology: “Thinking ideologically about technologies either means you’re somebody’s patsy or somebody’s tool (or that you are seeking to align others behind your own interested project or fervid dreams).”
- takes a line-by-line approach, as does here, trying to roast Andreessen at every corner. I worry that in parodying Marc’s rhetoric and sweeping statements, these type of rebuttals suffer from the same sleights of hand that Andreessen committed.
- comes to Andreessen’s defense, claiming that most of his critics are bitter journalists who don’t understand economics. (To be clear, I'm no journalist and don’t claim to know much economics either). He does, however give better context and defense of a techno-optimist position, fresh from publishing an entire book on the matter.
- gives a balanced response, illustrating the fallacy of thinking that all technological progress is good. Sure, on net-terms and in the long-term, it’s been positive so far. But that doesn’t mean it’s always positive, and that every instance of technology is worth being optimistic about.
- strips away the ideological language to write an enviously clean distillation of the fundamental principle that Andreessen puts forward, that “if you can do more with less, you get more for less”. Like me, he calls for re-broadening the definition of technology to encompass “things that allow us to do more with less”. This was BY FAR, my favourite response of the week, and everyone needs to read it.
- makes a powerful point in his response: “if everyone believed in … [what] Andreessen is asking them to believe in, it is far from obvious that it would lead to a world that confirmed those beliefs. The very diversity that Andreessen extolls as a benefit of a market system is a diversity of preferences. It is a diversity of opinions regarding how useful a technology is. And to really progress from a technological standpoint requires challenge from those pessimistic about a technology’s prospects. Build a society of techno-optimists, and there is a good chance it will be a society of technological frustration.”
Credit to
for writing the DALLE-3 prompt and sharing the resulting image that I chose for this blog. Original on X.
Other recommended reading from Substack:
🛝
encourages us to embrace failure and make learning a playful experience.💳
dissects how betrayal changes us through a personal story of financial fraud.🚗
explores how mimetic desire shapes us through a touching story of her beloved Mini Cooper.👵
shares her weekly roundup, covering the US markets and how young people want to retire rich.🌳
continues to build out his excellent second blog by penning this piece on the difference between gardeners and architects when it comes to writing.
I’ve been reading On Writing by Stephen King. He said “you must not come lightly to the blank page.” So here we are.
When I talk about knowledge, I’m roughly referring to David Deutsch’s definition that knowledge is contained in good explanations. For an intro, this podcast is good. But you should read the book - The Beginning of Infinity.
First, pardon the pun. Second, as far as it’s possible, I’m referring to obesity that’s driven by environmental and lifestyle changes rather than less common genetic causes. But I appreciate that’s not always easy to do.
Compilations and Thoughts on Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimism
I love technology, it’s been of great assistance to humankind. But I don’t like technology taking over humanity. Replacing humanity. Replacing the human brain.
Another terrific post, Zan.
I'm a fan of the oft cited principle of Chesterton's fence. Progress, but progress with care. I'm guessing that would not fit in with the manifesto.