Eight years ago, the November U.S. election results deeply shocked the tiny staff at Backchannel, the boutique tech publishing house I led. The next morning, the editor wrote on our Slack that working on the technology story seemed tone deaf, if not futile. On the plane from Modern York to San Francisco, I wrote a column in response to this impulse, addressed both to me and my colleagues, as well as to the readers. I argued that regardless of the enormity of this event, one thing had not changed; was the most crucial story of our times Still the technological revolution we were going through. Destructive politicians, even destructive ones, can come and go – or refuse to go. But the chip, the network, the mobile device, and everything that came with them were changing humanity and perhaps what it would mean to be human. Our job was to chronicle this epic transformation, regardless of who held political power. The headline of my column was: “The iPhone is bigger than Donald Trump.”
This week, Trump was once again elected president despite… oh hell, I won’t go through the litany of what might seem like batch disqualifications. You’ve heard it all and it doesn’t matter to most voters. This is an incredible story and the next few years will undoubtedly be history. Maybe not in a good way. Perhaps in a very bad way for a country where many expected to celebrate its enduring values on America’s 250th birthday. (In the spirit of unity, I will employ the qualifier “maybe” because losers should be humble and who knows what awaits them.)
However, I am not moving away from the thought that came to my mind in 2016. As Stewart Brand once said“Human nature changes little; science does this and changes occur, irreversibly changing the world. What happens in technology and science remains the activity that will ultimately have the greatest impact on our species. Hundreds of years later, future generations (including Ray Kurzweil) will look back on this time and identify it as the period when microchips and neural network software changed everything. And who was that strongman with the witty hair who took down a real estate country in the Western Hemisphere? I no longer run a publishing house, I represent only one voice in a much larger group. (As for WIRED’s institutional perspective, please note what my boss said, which I support.) So, speaking for myself, I emphatically repeat my 2016 Statement of Purposes, with a slight change: Artificial Intelligence is bigger than Donald Trump .
Of course, journalists must actively cover Trump’s second presidency while relentlessly demanding accountability. In the near future – for some of us coders, that could be our entire remaining term! — what happens in our community and country will have a greater impact on our daily lives than the latest version of Claude, ChatGPT or even Apple Intelligence. (Sorry, Tim Apple.) If you lose your health care or reproductive rights or end up in a deportation camp or a prison cell because of the policies of our returning president, the knowledge that artificial intelligence, mixed reality and quantum computing may one day redefine us, no will reduce pain.
Additionally, those of us in tech will no doubt stop reporting on the Trump presidency; Politics, as always, influences the course of technology. (Remember that the US government created something called the Internet). There is an ongoing debate right now about how and whether we should regulate or restrict artificial intelligence, a technology that some call “the latest invention.” I can already hear discussions that the novel administration will abandon complicated solutions executive order on artificial intelligence commissioned by Joe Biden. Some fear that novel president Elon Musk’s mega-advisor – who has his own artificial intelligence company and is implementing artificial intelligence in his other businesses, such as Tesla and Neuralink – will have undue and possibly inappropriate influence over government policies and contracts. I have also heard speculation that the movement to regulate artificial intelligence may be defeated by the threat of China making a full-fledged effort in this area. This is crucial because the basic principles of contemporary artificial intelligence and the quirks of its creators may influence whether the worst fears about the technology come true.
So the day after Donald Trump’s re-election, I visited an artificial intelligence company and interviewed one of its leaders and a top engineer. Yes, on my way back to the office, I thought about the election results and became depressed again. But I will finish the article about this company and then write another one, keeping to the technological rhythm as long as my broken heart beats. After all, artificial intelligence is still the biggest story in town.