First Draft book review – Colin Henderson March 7th, 25
My first draft notes on this important new book.
“The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”). 1
First Draft book review – Colin Henderson March 7th, 25 1
Conclusion 6
Preface
The Author reflects on his philosophy broadly and more specifically what is wrong and missing in the American approach to invention and use of technology. It is a powerful message that in simple terms could be viewed as a direct reflection from the 60’s and Rand (missiles, radar, the internet etc) versus the last 30 years which abdicated the Government role to markets (Facebook, Google, online advertising).
He caustically notes the market creations of last 30 years will be quickly forgotten.
“The state has retreated from the pursuit of the kind of large-scale breakthroughs that gave rise to the atomic bomb and the internet, ceding the challenge of developing the next wave of pathbreaking technologies to the private sector—a remarkable and near-total placement of faith in the market. Silicon Valley, meanwhile, turned inward, focusing its energy on narrow consumer products, rather than projects that speak to and address our greater security and welfare.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”).
“The Silicon Valley giants that dominate the American economy have made the strategic mistake of casting themselves as existing essentially outside the country in which they were built.”
“The vital yet messy questions of what constitutes a good life, which collective endeavours society should pursue, and what a shared and national identity can make possible have been set aside as the anachronisms of another age.”
The first few pages are a significant attack on the malaise that extends from the self important Silicon Valley “market” whose target has no objective in business viability, improvement to the country or any attempt to provide that which the country needs to progress and remain strong. Rather the personal gain of the participants has taken precedence and gives us a Valley country within a country named USA.
“The central argument that we advance in the pages that follow is that the software industry should rebuild its relationship with government and redirect its effort and attention to constructing the technology and artificial intelligence capabilities that will address the most pressing challenges that we collectively face. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation and the articulation of a national project—what is this country, what are our values, and for what do we stand—and, by extension, to preserve the enduring yet fragile geopolitical advantage that the United States and its allies in Europe and elsewhere have retained over their adversaries. It is, of course, the protection of individual rights against state encroachment that took its modern shape within “the West”—a concept that has been discarded by many, almost casually—without which the dizzying ascent of Silicon Valley would never have been possible.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”)
Karp proposes a solution where “software industry should rebuild its relationship with government and redirect its effort and attention to constructing the technology and artificial intelligence capabilities that will address the most pressing challenges that we collectively face“.
This is a powerful statement that cuts across political and social divides in America.
These introductory comments and quotes are from the preface. we have now to get into the meat of the thinking.
Part I
The chapters in PartI1 provide a useful history of the direct connection between the political eng, jet engineering mindset focussed on continuing the success of winning WW2 and align with Engineers. This resulted in secret development of missiles, Nuclear weapons expansion, Internet GPS, satellite communication
“The modern incarnation of Silicon Valley has strayed significantly from this tradition of collaboration with the U.S. government, focusing instead on the consumer market, including the online advertising and social media platforms that have come to dominate—and limit—our sense of the potential of technology.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”)
He shows American has been hollowed out 9part II for detail)and produced a Silicon Valley class alongside a political class more aligned to law than engineering.
“An unwinding of our skepticism of the American project will be necessary for us to move forward. We must bend the latest and most advanced forms of AI to our will, or risk allowing our adversaries to do so while we examine and debate, sometimes it seems endlessly, the extent and character of our divi sions. Our central argument is that—in this new era of advanced AI, which provides our geopolitical opponents with the most compelling opportunity since the last world war to challenge our global standing—we should return to that tradition of close collaboration between the technology industry and the government.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”).
Part II
“Part II, “The Hollowing Out of the American Mind,” offers an account of how we got here—of the origins of our broader cultural retreat both in the United States and across the West. We begin with the most structural issue—the current generation’s abandonment of belief or conviction in broader political projects. The most talented minds in the country and the world have for the most part retreated from the often messy and controversial work that is most vital and significant to our collective welfare and defense. These engineers decline to work for the U.S. military but do not hesitate to dedicate their lives to raising capital to build the next app or social media platform of the moment. The causes of this turn away from defending the American national project, we argue, include the systematic attack and attempt to dismantle any conception of American or Western identity during the 1960s and 1970s. The dismantling of an entire system of privilege was rightly begun. But we failed to resurrect anything substantial, a coherent collective identity or set of communal values, in its place. The void was left open, and the market rushed in with fervor to fill the gap. The result was a hollowing out of the American project, with a rudderless yet highly educated elite at the helm. This generation knew what it opposed—what it stood against and could not condone—but not what it was for. The earliest technologists who built the personal computer, the graphical user interface, and the mouse, for example, had grown skeptical of advancing the aims of a nation whose allegiance many of them believed it did not deserve. The rise of the internet in the 1990s was as a result co-opted by the market, and the consumer was hailed as its king. But many have rightly questioned whether that initial digital revolution made possible by the advent of the internet, in the 1990s and 2000s, truly improved our lives, instead of merely changing them. It was against this backdrop that Palantir was founded and set out working for American defense and intelligence agencies in the years after the September 11 attacks.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”).
Part III
The book sets out the impact when engineering development aligns with the political direction. Roosevelt was focussed on. medical, military and advanced technology to maintain and improved Americas lead in these areas worldwide.
“Part III, “The Engineering Mindset,” we describe the organizational culture that makes Palantir and many of the other technology giants that have been founded in Silicon Valley distinct. So much of what makes Palantir work constitutes a direct rejection of the standard model in American corporate practice. In particular, we discuss the lessons we can learn from the social organization of honeybee swarms and flocks of starlings and the implications of improvisational theater for building startups, as well as the conformity experiments by Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and others in the 1950s and 1960s that exposed the feebleness of the vast majority of human minds when confronted with the threat of authority. We also discuss the early years of Palantir, when the company began working with the U.S. Army and special forces personnel in Afghanistan to develop software that would help predict the placement of roadside bombs, the ubiquitous improvised explosive devices that became the leading cause of casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of nearly a decade. The engineering mindset that has allowed us and others to build such software relies on the preservation of space for creative friction and rejection of intellectual fragility, a willingness to shrug off the unrelenting pressure to conform and mimic what has come before, and a skepticism of ideology in favor of the ruthless pursuit of results.
PART IV
Finally, in Part IV, “Rebuilding the Technological Republic,” we address what will be needed to reconstitute a culture of collective endeavor and shared purpose. The Valley remains deeply reluctant to risk entering into any number of public domains, including local law enforcement, medicine, education, and until only recently national security—areas that are often too politically fraught and unforgiving to outsiders. The result has been the rise of innovation deserts across the country, sectors that have spurned technology and resisted, often fiercely, the entry of new ideas and participants. The public sector must also incorporate the most effective features of Silicon Valley’s culture in order to remake its own, including ensuring that those leading our most significant institutions have a stake in their success or failure. More broadly, the reconstitution of a technological republic will require a reassertion of national culture and values—and indeed of collective identity and purpose—without which the gains and benefits of the scientific and engineering breakthroughs of the current age may be relegated to serving the narrow interests of a secluded elite.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”)
Conclusion
The quote earlier is crucial to the path forward. It highlights the central forward thinking thesis that AI must be levered to achieve future engineering activity and equally important maintain a lead over bad actors and novel risks we do not even understand yet.
“An unwinding of our skepticism of the American project will be necessary for us to move forward. We must bend the latest and most advanced forms of AI to our will, or risk allowing our adversaries to do so while we examine and debate, sometimes it seems endlessly, the extent and character of our divisions. Our central argument is that—in this new era of advanced AI, which provides our geopolitical opponents with the most compelling opportunity since the last world war to challenge our global standing—we should return to that tradition of close collaboration between the technology industry and the government.” (from “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by “Alexander C. Karp, Nicholas W. Zamiska”)
