the_dunk_tank

This is from an interview he did with Ezra Klein in 2018. https://www.vox.com/2018/1/16/16897738/jaron-lanier-interview

Jaron Lanier: The first thing I want to do is just confirm the degree of problem that exists... I still kinda have my meal card in Silicon Valley despite of all the things I say and so I'm in these conversations sometimes and I hear people who have done extremely well and have a lot of influence in Silicon Valley say things that just... send me reeling. Because they're just so appalling. And so a fairly typical line of conversation lately has gone something like this:

Lanier: Well you know, um automation is coming and a whole lot of people are going to be thrown out of work. Many many millions of people, many hundreds of millions because they won't be driving anymore, they won't be doing so many other things. We think we can have our algorithms be better teachers, better nurses. All, even the sort of supposedly human-centric "safe" things. Or in the worst case, we'll only need a little bit of human labor to cover the rough spots of the algorithms. But the question is what to do with all these people and a lot of them have been saying, "Ya know, this Opioid addiction crisis has come up at just the right time because actually it will be easier for everybody if a lot of the people that aren't needed are just sedated all the time." Like this is actually positive.

Ezra: Do people actually say that to you?

Lanier: Yeah, I've heard that a number of times, it's sort of an internal talking point that comes up. Yeah I've heard that. Yeah um. I mean, I always fight it, but yeah sure, I've heard it. And I'm not saying everybody says it, but I'm saying there's... it's the sort of thing that one hears. And one definitely hears that...

Ezra: I'm completely flabbergasted.

LAnier: Yeah, I know, I know.

Ezra: That another human being would make this comment to another human being.

Lanier: Yeah, I don't want to name the specific people who have done it, but they're known names, you know? And uh, similarly with the idea of technology being addicted, of using the different techniques like noisy feedback which is what's used in gambling to make gambling addictive. Of using these things to addict people to information systems, it's a very similar argument. That we need to have the people in some sort of a "spot" where they're not going to just burn everything down when they don't have jobs. And then um, the basic income model is thought of as a kind of a ma.. It's kind of like in the matrix movies, ya know? It's just this way to maintain this population of people who aren't doing anything and aren't needed.