Lex Fridman did a nice job interviewing co-author of Mosaic, and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. Marc is also the co-founder and general partner of prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. I have sent some entrepreneurs their way as one of the few venture capital firms not caught up in subpriming.
I agree with Marc on many fronts, and we share a deep knowledge of technology, mine stemming from getting my start in programming in macro assembler on a Harris-100 mini-computer to make my life as a computer operator easier. I have always gotten along with people who know their stuff, so to speak, and can poke holes quickly in the stories of people who do not.
We disagree on the future and impact of A.I. for the reason described in a previous article where I describe how A.I. will not save humanity. I understand Marc’s stance, as a venture capitalist, to keep the future selling of technology alive. The future of humanity is in jeopardy when we do not develop technology that improves human adaptability to nature’s entropy and, uncalibrated to any human theory, develops technology for technology’s sake. The default modus operandi of Silicon Valley today.
Marc goes on to criticize the government for how it handled the Coronavirus pandemic, asking who did any of the scientific modeling to prove our actions of masking right or wrong. May I infuse that modeling requires data from events that have already occurred, and since there was no prior relevant data available we had to act defensively? Surely we made mistakes in acutely trying to save one-million Americans from dying.
I would reverse the question Marc poses. What modeling demonstrates that social media, which as a board member of Facebook he appears a proponent of, has a positive impact on humanity? Or, in the way I posed it to former Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, why do you think a monoculture fed by advertising is good for the world?
Technology innovation as a whole has yet to demonstrate it improves the one thing determining the excellence and longevity of humanity. Innovation must be modeled to improve human adaptability to nature’s entropy, or else innovation, despite its many lofty promises, is responsible for an accelerated anthropogenic cascade.
Marc needs to listen to his own advice, and model technology innovation to contribute to the strength of human renewal. Just because you can make money on the temporal fairytales of innovation, bought into by a growing supply of humanity’s greater fools unable to think for themselves, does not mean you should.
