Why Tech Inevitability is Self-Defeating

Summary

My dear startup founder friend, You told me that everything is “hyper-determined,” that “life is a big game because of that.” You’re not alone in thinking this: Silicon Valley loves to preach inevitability. A Silicon Valley paradox “Technology has its own agenda.” — Kevin Kelly https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-unabomber-w/ “Technology happens because it is possible.” — Sam Altman https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html “Probability that AI exceeds the intelligence of all humans combined by 2030 is ~100%.” — Elon Musk https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1871083864111919134?lang=fr Notice the pattern: inevitability, inevitability, inevitability. Precisely what you believe. Yet in reality, they could have gone surfing, lived quietly, done nothing. However, they worked obsessively, raised money, built companies, and reshaped the world. That was their agency, fully deployed. You’ll say, “They got lucky, it had to happen, if not them someone else. That’s why we all work ourselves to the bone.” Now hear me out: I believe they worked hard to achieve this outcome and they deserve the credit. But I also believe that with success comes responsibility — responsibility that evaporates the moment y’all imply inevitability. My goal here is to show you why the trope “it was inevitable” is misleading and it shifts responsibility away from those with power. To be clear, versions of this reasoning have appeared often in “pop science” and academic writing so I’m not claiming originality, but I hope to convince you that treating inevitability as fact comes with important downsides and it’s better to manage your life as if you’d had agency. inevitability What Silicon Valley calls inevitability is really a rhetorical posture: a way of talking about the future as if it could not be otherwise. It borrows from different philosophical schools of thought (fatalism, determinism, technological determinism) — each distinct, and often incompatible. This patchwork coal...