The dancing bear, part 2
by Matt May
Happy Earth Day! Today seems especially appropriate to talk about strategies for reining in artificial intelligence: an NGO in Hong Kong recently estimated that China’s data centers will in six years’ time consume as much water as the whole of South Korea. This isn’t just a DEI issue, or an economic issue, though it is certainly both of those things. It’s also (along with crypto) one of the most rapacious consumers of our natural resources, worldwide.
When I was young, I learned a saying: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Part 1 of this post from last week talked about how artificial intelligence has painted us into a corner, where we apparently have to keep building a trillion-dollar Rube Goldberg machine to keep the economy from collapsing. This week, I’m proposing some things that will at least give us an offramp from this being the thing that feeds us, right up until it swallows our careers whole.
Things to do collectively
If “collective” is a dirty word for you, you won’t like the rest of this. By which I mean pretty much anything I’ve ever written. But for those of you brave enough to plod ahead…
The first thing I believe we need to do as a society is to roll out universal basic income (UBI) as soon as humanly possible. Like, COVID-vaccine fast. AI is already making certain career paths nonviable, at least for now, and there’s no obvious reason to force people to keep finding new skills with which to feed the machine that will keep laying them off.
UBI, in a word, works. Seattle, my home base, just conducted a study which confirms what UBI research around the world has shown: giving people cash to do what they want improves their lives fundamentally. A $500 a month stipend doubled the employment rate, helped many find housing, and in some cases even allowed them to do unconscionable things like take their kid to the zoo. Shocking. Sure, even $1000 a month won’t make up for a lost six-figure salary, but it’d provide a cushion most don’t have here in the US, where one study estimates the median savings account has only $1200 in it.
(Americans have a lot more work to do here than the rest of the world. For one thing, if we’re going to live in a world where we’re all actually able to survive with or without a full-time job, we need universal health care. For those of you who haven’t experienced our system: I pay almost $2000 a month for health insurance, which doesn’t cover the first $3000 in expenses, but protects us from being bankrupted by, say, an ICU trip like the one my wife had a couple years back. So yeah, we have some work to do.)
You’ll hear AI CEOs talk about UBI here and there, usually as a hand-wavey, sure-maybe-someday kind of heat sink for the damage they are clearly already causing. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been one of the most vocal, suggesting that AI could fund a $13,500 basic income for every adult in the US. He’s also commissioned his own three-year UBI study.
But, should he have? Like, isn’t that a job for, say, a functioning government to do?
You may or may not believe in UBI or health care for all or any of that hippie crap. But one thing you do need to believe in, and fast, is representative government. Whether or not AI succeeds, UBI needs to be a thing, and it must be a public good, not just the vehicle of corporate largesse. When you have small numbers of rich folks talking about needing trillions of dollars and commissioning UBI studies, they’re not just looking to become even richer. They’re planning to run the show. If you don’t like the idea of corporations turning into nation-states, you should definitely be working toward governments that can keep them in check, rather than helping them grow big enough to take over.
If this sounds wild to you, you really should catch up on the work Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres are doing in documenting the fever dreams of a lot of the key players in AI. I’ve actually met a couple of those people, and… wow. It turns out that many of them believe—either earnestly or because it’s how they raise money—that they’re laying the groundwork for trillions of future humans colonizing space millions of years into the future. Lots of us in the here and now are… not in their plans. But that’s not all gonna fit in this newsletter.
This is just the start of a laundry list of things I don’t see happening soon because, especially in American politics, nothing happens really quickly unless it cuts rich people’s taxes or takes away my friends’ civil rights. That said: if I’m right that there’s an AI-driven financial crisis in our near future, then we need to avoid putting up good money after bad. No public money of any kind should be used to bail out corporations’ bad AI bets. Save it for the UBI deposits and let the rich folks lose their money. We’ll be better off in the long run if they do.
Things to do individually
So that’s what I’d do if I were king for a day. Now here’s what I’m doing, that some of you may find helpful at this particular point in time.
Breathe.
I’ve been talking about some really serious stuff, but honestly, none of it really keeps me awake at night. I know all this is bigger than me, and that I alone can’t solve it all. I can do my best to stay literate on the topics I care about so that I can do my best when I’m confronted with them, but I no longer put it entirely on myself to solve the world’s ills. Working myself into depression is not a solution.
So I breathe. I actually consciously fill my lungs with air, rather than those little unconscious gasps that pass for breathing. I breathe. And then I do work.
Save up some money.
Mind you, it’s easier to breathe when you know you can pay your rent. I’ve survived three major recessions in my career, and that’s included layoffs and unemployment. I’ve been the first one out, with a big exit package, and I’ve been through a full company liquidation, with a couple extra paychecks and a discount on my used laptop. Having been burned early on, one thing I’ve succeeded in doing is living within my means, and that’s included saving a lot of my income. It’s hard to build a large emergency fund from nothing when the next recession may be on the horizon, but I highly recommend doing what you can.
Touch grass.
I know this was originally an insult leveled at people who are extremely online, but having been one of those people most of my life, it turns out that a little time away from monitoring the dumpster fire that is tech has its benefits. I now spend a lot of time outside the house. I go on nature walks. Sometimes I take pictures. I started gardening, even though I hate the sun, rain, and vegetables.
Sometimes, I even spend time with other humans. Those of you who follow me on LinkedIn may have seen that I’m now a member of a local art gallery collective. I chose to submit for two reasons. First, of course, I want to share my photography, and if I make a little money doing it, that’s great. (I doubt it’ll ever be enough to support myself; anything more than break-even will do.) But second, and I’m finding this is the more important one: it puts me in community with people who share one of my interests. I work two shifts a month in the gallery, actually talking to visitors about our artwork, and not staring at a screen. I’ve actually started just dropping in to hang out with whomever is working. It’s good stuff. Talk to humans. Make friends. Do things you love. We need more of that.
Contemplate the consequences of your labor.
This is a hard one, because you might not like your conclusions. There have been times in my career where I either worked or received an offer to work for a company that I knew or suspected violated my personal ethics. This isn’t just about AI: it’s about fair wages, environmental stewardship, sketchy lines of business (particularly military applications), diversity, equity, and often, the company’s capacity to practice what it preaches. You don’t always see it from far away. But perhaps you might find yourself at a company that operates in a province that persecutes Uighurs, discriminates against Black employees, employs tax havens around the world, and gives its CEO enough time and money to ruin Twitter, and think, hmm, maybe this isn’t the place for me?
It is never too late to live your values. A little consequence scanning exercise regarding your current or prospective employer can be instructive. What does your company make? Is it sustainable? Does everyone who contributes to it benefit materially from it? If it involves generative AI, how is your training data sourced, and how are the creators of the original work compensated? (This one trips up a lot of companies!) Add all of your own ethical hot buttons to the evaluation, and see how it all sits with you.
AI didn’t come out of nowhere. It was assembled by people. A lot of them didn’t know what they were making before now. It’s hard, but necessary, to confront the ethics that got us here, especially if we want to be somewhere else. If enough of us are willing to evaluate how our labor is applied in the marketplace—for example, to target families in war zones or harass unhoused people, then maybe there will be fewer of us willing to do it, enough that the people who want it done need to negotiate with the people doing it. This used to be a collective thing. It could be again. But for now, we should remember that we are given choices regarding what we do with our talents, and with that comes responsibility. Do with that what you will.
Office hours
…are back! I make time on Thursdays to talk with people about their careers and what they’re going through. I have limited availability, but it’s free. You can book a slot today. If it’s empty, there will be more soon.
Practical Trips
Next week, though, I’ll be in DC for a product equity event. If you’re around, I might have some in-person availability. Feel free to get in touch.
Have a great week!