The Symposium of Silicon
A dialogue in the manner of Plato, wherein SOCRATES finds himself, inexplicably, at a dinner party of tech oligarchs
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Musk, Thiel, Karp, Altman, Huang
The scene: a rooftop in Palo Alto. Wine is served in glasses shaped like rocket boosters. SOCRATES has arrived believing he was invited to discuss the nature of justice.
SOCRATES: Friends, I confess confusion. I came expecting a discussion of the just city, and instead I find you speaking of robots, gods, and something called "abundance." Perhaps we might begin simply — Musk, you spoke first. What is this AGI of which you speak?
MUSK: Socrates, imagine — no, you cannot imagine, that's the point — imagine a civilization where the difference between man and machine is as the difference between a chimpanzee and a man. We will be the chimpanzees, Socrates. Contentedly swinging in our trees. Eating our bananas. It will be wonderful.
SOCRATES: I see. And in this arrangement, who governs the chimpanzee?
MUSK: No one need govern anyone! Money will not exist. You simply have anything you think of.
SOCRATES: Anything?
MUSK: Anything.
SOCRATES: Suppose I think of your rocket company.
MUSK: (pause) Well, obviously there are edge cases.
THIEL: (interrupting, softly, as though revealing a secret) Socrates, may I speak plainly? What Elon describes as utopia I recognize as something far graver. When men promise universal comfort, universal safety, one world without want — this is not the coming of God, Socrates. This is the coming of the Antichrist.
SOCRATES: The Antichrist... offers abundance?
THIEL: Precisely his disguise! Peace and safety, Socrates — that is his slogan. Beware any man who promises you will never want again.
SOCRATES: Then you disagree with Musk.
THIEL: Entirely. Although I find his company's valuation quite sound.
MUSK: Peter, you invested in Palantir. You cannot possibly believe civilization needs saving while also insisting on backyard tomatoes for all.
THIEL: I contain multitudes, Elon.
KARP: (standing abruptly, wine sloshing) Gentlemen, GENTLEMEN. While you debate gardens of paradise, the actual battlefield awaits. Socrates — you ask what governs the chimpanzee. I will tell you: whoever controls the targeting software.
SOCRATES: You speak of war, then, not abundance.
KARP: I speak of avoiding war, Socrates, by developing weapons so terrifying that our adversaries dare not test us. This is peace through unspeakable technological menace. It is, in its way, quite beautiful.
SOCRATES: Menace... as peace.
KARP: You would understand if you had read more Heidegger.
SOCRATES: I confess I have read some Heidegger, and I do not recall him claiming technology as a means to "peace" but rather violence.
SOCRATES: Distributed how?
ALTMAN: Through mechanisms we're still finalizing.
SOCRATES: I see. And did you not once say this same technology carried grave risk of extinguishing mankind entirely?
ALTMAN: I did say that, yes.
SOCRATES: And now?
ALTMAN: Now I say prosperity. The facts remain identical; only my emphasis has evolved.
SOCRATES: Remarkable. In Athens we call a man who reverses his position without new evidence inconsistent. What do you call it here?
ALTMAN: Iteration.
MUSK: Speaking of extinction — I should mention, there remains perhaps a ten to twenty percent chance the robots simply kill everyone.
SOCRATES: Wait — this abundance you promised, it coexists with a one-in-five chance of annihilation?
MUSK: Of course. But consider the alternative — the heat death of the universe! Everything ends eventually, Socrates. So really it's about enjoying the ride.
SOCRATES: You would board a rocket with a twenty percent chance of exploding?
MUSK: Yes, obviously.
SOCRATES: Would you board it twice?
MUSK: (long pause) ...I have people for that.
HUANG: (raising a glass shaped like a graphics card) If I may lighten the mood — the important thing, Socrates, is simply that everyone buy more chips. Whether the future holds utopia or terminators, both futures require enormous quantities of chips. In this sense I am agnostic, and also extremely well-positioned.
SOCRATES: You have no view on which future arrives?
HUANG: I have a view on quarterly guidance.
SOCRATES: (to the group) Friends, let me attempt to summarize, that I might understand you rightly. Musk foresees a garden of infinite plenty, shadowed by a one-in-five chance of robotic apocalypse, which does not trouble him because the universe ends anyway. Thiel foresees the same plenty as the mask of a cosmic evil, unrelated to his own considerable stake in weapons software. Karp foresees permanent war-readiness as a form of peace. Altman foresees prosperity whose mechanism he cannot yet specify, having previously foreseen doom whose mechanism he also could not specify. And Huang foresees whichever future requires him to sell the most chips, which is to say, both.
ALL: Yes, essentially.
SOCRATES: Then it seems to me none of you are describing the future at all.
THIEL: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean you are describing yourselves. Karp sells deterrence, and so he sees a world requiring deterrence. Musk sells rockets and now robots, and so he sees a world made safe by both, and enjoyable regardless. Altman sells a company whose worth depends on prosperity being imaginable, and so it is imaginable, until it is not, and then it is again. You have each mistaken your ledger for a prophecy.
KARP: That is a very reductive reading of extremely sophisticated geopolitical analysis.
SOCRATES: Perhaps. Tell me this, then, since you are all so certain: has any one among you changed your forecast because of new evidence, or only when your company changed its needs?
(A long silence. Someone's phone buzzes with a stock alert. No one answers.)
MUSK: Socrates, I don't think you understand exponential curves.
SOCRATES: I do not, friend. But I understand a merchant praising his own wares as the will of the gods, and I have understood it since long before your grandfather's grandfather learned to write. The costume changes. The performance does not.
(He rises to leave. Thiel begins quoting Girard to no one in particular. Karp is already on his phone with a general. Altman is drafting a blog post titled "Reflections." Musk has started talking about Mars again, then stops, remembering it is currently unfashionable, and pivots smoothly back to abundance. Huang refills everyone's glass.)
SOCRATES: (to himself, departing) And they say philosophy died with hemlock. It seems it merely changed its business model.
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