Reid Hoffman is hawking his new book, “Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future.” He’s the LinkedIn Founder, a Microsoft board member, and serial tech investor. Tech Bros are generally not to be trusted, of course, as some of the worst of them are now fixated on destroying the great American experiment while further enriching themselves in the process.
Reid, who isn’t one of those predators, told us at the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday that, “The general discourse on AI has been negative in asking what could go wrong. Am I losing key elements of my agency?” He countered his own rhetorical device by adding that, “This (these fears) have always been part of the conversation involving any new technology” right back to Gutenberg’s printing press. “The worry about human agency is very deep in our psychology,” he added.
Not surprisingly, he argues in his new book that AI will in fact, “massively empower our personal agency.” There's truth in that assertion. After all, we always need tech evangelists like Reid to push us beyond our comfort zone. The current challenge, however, is that we will be without the regulatory mechanisms to stop the most reckless and dangerous players in this game.
As with everything of this nature, the doomsayers are too negative though the worrisome questions they ask need to be answered. Reid and the tech crowd, on the other hand, are far too damn-the-torpedoes positive in pushing their own visions and financial agendas. The truth will ultimately be found in the middle by moving forward robustly and strategically with AI but with certain limits and safeguards designed to protect us from ourselves and the worst of human nature.
Hoffman at the CFR on Friday.