18 Things, #15: Tech is the new junk-food, founders are the new bankers

As many people and businesses shift away from the near-religious worship of “disruption”, 2018 will see an increase in public concern about the affect technology is having on society, and on the benevolence of tech’s billionaire founders.

The argument that technology is bad for society is not a new one. In the current digital revolution people like Nicholas Carr and Jaron Lanier have been sounding the alarm for years. Nor is the argument unique to this revolution. Newspapers, radio, and TV were all going to bring about the downfall of society.

But underneath the easily dismissed Luddism there are valid arguments. The scale and speed with which negative outcomes and externalities can occur is now global and instant, a unique feature of this revolution. Add to this the revenue growth expectations of what are now some of the world’s largest companies, and there are valid criticisms of big-tech.

Despite the self-driving cars, AI, and VR wizardry, Google and Facebook are advertising companies. And while Amazon is not primarily an ad company, it’s incentives are not far off Google and Facebook - get people to buy things. Despite sloganism around “connecting communities” and “do no evil”, the primary concern of these companies is increasing advertising revenues, seemingly at any cost. As public companies (albeit with private control), Wall Street actually has every right to demand the delivery of more profit. 

But many of those who have delivered that outcome over the past few years are now questioning whether it was worthwhile, and the impact their work is having on the world.

None of this is helped by the activities of Mark Zuckerberg and Travis Kalanick over the past 12 months. Zuckerberg’s bizarre not-running-for-president-seriously presidential tour of the US was topped off with a tone-deaf VR tour of flooded Haiti, complete with hi-fives. Meanwhile Kalanick’s leadership of Uber (too many failures to list really) has many questioning whether all this regulation stuff might actually serve a purpose after all. To quote Scott Galloway, “In the 20th century big tech saved the world, in the 21st it’s f*ing it up”.

Confidence level: 90% (definitely one of the more subjective predictions though)

18 Things is a slightly different take on the usual “Annual Predictions” posts. For the next 18 days I’ll post one thing per day I believe might happen in 2018, with a brief overview of why. Each will also have a confidence level (an idea nicked from Scott Alexander), so I can come back at the end of the year and see how I went.

I’ve mostly stuck to my circle of competence, but please don’t read in to anything too much, and definitely don’t go betting your house on any of these. You can read previous posts here, or if you’re impatient, I’ll be posting these in 3 parts over at Blonde3.com.