Loretta Napoleoni’s new book tells of a state of mind that comes from our times of great change and warns of tougher tests ahead in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
As AI develops at such dizzying speed, the Italian-American thinker’s latest work has a subtitle that sets out its thesis.
Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good looks unflinchingly at the rise of modern corporations to a position of control over the next phase of development, at the expense of a sense of common good for the people.
And that could lead to results so catastrophic that human existence is threatened. This danger comes just as the inequality that has proceeded it makes it more difficult for the human race to rely on what has helped overcome previous existential threats: solidarity.
Uncertainty supercharged
She defines a new phenomenon: the Pandemic of Anxiety. This is caused by our inability to understand the new and adapt to the dizzyingly rapid pace of change.
She suggests that our brains are incapable of processing a high level of uncertainty because we live in a "present future," where the intersection of what is happening and what could happen blurs the boundaries between what is now and what is next.
Previous generations have been shaken by uncertainty in dangerous and volatile circumstances, but they were able to adapt to keep up. Now, as out sense of community is weakened and the pace of change speeds up, the biggest challenge looms just as we are at our most undermined by change.
Napoleoni argues we have entered a "selfish phase in history," leaving us in an unenviable state described by novelist Haruki Murakami: "Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come."
She identifies what amounts to a new state of existential paranoia caused by:
"The politics of fear, that erodes human resilience while revealing an increasingly bleak future filled with dangers that can be understood and confronted if humanity adopts a rational choice aimed at saving the planet."
Age of pessimism
Napoleoni sets this new brand of fear in the planet’s first geological age to have been shaped by human behaviour, known as the Anthropocene, saying it has led to what she calls the Age of Pessimism.
In both, nature no longer leads change. And in this environment arrives a new form of a Frankenstien’s monster: AI.
Its arrival, and the consensus that it has huge transformative potential, has come with a focus on the negatives – the threat, rather than the positives – leading to such widespread anxiety amid a lack of hope over climate change.
As AI arrives, there is a feeling that we are losing clean air. Glaciers are melting, beautifully coluored coral reefs are disappearing and tens of thousands of animal species are becoming extinct. Even the four seasons themselves seem to have started altering.
Meanwhile, the new technology is under the control of so few people, it feels more likely to generate more profits for the super-rich than to help save the world.
Napoleoni sees this technology as a product of the Anthropocene. She identifies the potential for it to help humanity, if it is harnesses for the common good. But if monopolised, it could add to the harm.
For good... or for profit?
The ultimate goal of big tech, as the sector is currently set up, is profit rather than any other outcome, including sustainability. Even the areas set up to address climate change, such as electric vehicles (EVs), could be doing more harm than good.
While there are benefits from powering cars with electricity generated from renewable resources, the batteries used cannot yet be disposed of safely and some studies have shown that EVs produce more carbon emissions when that is taken into account.
Such contradictions are part of the reason people feel less secure in their daily lives, according to the book. Fear of what lies ahead is making current daily life anxious.
And in some ways, with good reason, Napoleoni argues. Millions of people are facing the prospect of disruption to their dignified lives.
The rise in geopolitical tension accelerates the potential threat. People in the Middle East can face bankruptcy due to the wider disruption caused by the war in Ukraine. The repercussion of the Gaza war are also reverberating across the globe.
To some, the violence there looks like a threat from the Global North to the Global South. As journalist Chris Hedges put it, the message of Gaza seems to be: "We will crush you if you disobey us."
Inflation and profiteering
As all of this unfolds, the general and undefined sense of unease it causes adds to more clear and present problems people are facing around the world.
Bills for electricity, water, gas, telephone, internet, and sanitation are all heading higher in a cost-of-living crisis and the profits created, argues Napoleoni, are going into the pockets of a few.
The sense of public service and the importance of a municipal realm to protect the poor has been undermined.
And with AI and its development heading the same way, Napoleoni calls these tech monopolists “the new robber barons”. They care more from their own enrichment than for the future of the world.
It all amounts to what the book calls a new genesis, a form of extraordinary and rapid change amid the sense that the future is colliding with the present. And it is AI which is now driving that process.
The era of anxiety
The pace and complexity of what is going on, and the wider feeling of environmental doom which makes is also seem futile, creates the sense of anxiety that has become characteristic of our times.
Then there is also an older worry that remains relevant: the fear of the unknown. In part, it was triggered by the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging impact.
Napoleoni also uses less recent history as a guide. She says that at the dawn of any great transformation, there are always visionaries who embrace the unknown, individuals who understand what is happening faster than others, sometimes contributing to a positive transformation that benefits society as a whole.
Just as the industrial exploitation of steel led to the birth of modern cities, although steel has been used to make tools for 4,000 years, the Bessemer Process (the first inexpensive industrial method for producing quantities of steel from raw iron) brought about a real revolution. The innovator of this method was Henry Bessemer, who patented it in 1855.
While he did well out of it, this new industrial efficiency powered wider benefits for society, turning steel into one of the biggest industries in the world and transforming the built environment.
Napoleoni, drawing stark contrasts between then and now, also praises another figure of that age and industry: Andrew Carnegie, who led steel’s expansion and became one of the richest men in the world.
But he was also determined to do wider good, with philanthropy that continues to resonate around his name to this day after he gave away much of his fortune.
Napoleoni argues that the true measure of the world’s significant historical entrepreneurs is not the wealth they accrue, but how that channel it into contributing to human progress.
