#TechUtopianism

Miguel Afonso Caetanoremixtures@tldr.nettime.org
2025-05-21

"Locked in their rooms, with their rudimentary computers, they set about creating a non-earthly utopia. They dreamed about other worlds and other intelligences, fusing anarchism with New Ageism and libertarianism with science fiction.

So began the tragi-comic rebirth of utopianism. Since then, the ideology has evolved with the growth of AI and cybernetics. It is now mainstream right across the tech world, with adherents including tech guru Ray Kurzweil, and billionaires Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen. Today’s pioneers of repeating-the-past predict a future of unbounded technological and economic growth.

The “Tech Utopians” have two main projects. The first is abundance: an end to poverty, hunger, sickness, and back-breaking labour. This will supposedly be achieved through vast social engineering projects, masterminded by an elite class, and with the aid of genius machines.

The second is the improvement of humans through scientific progress. A perfect “blank slate” human will be created for utopia 2.0, and they will be morally, intellectually, and physically enhanced. Humans won’t just be cured of illness. They’ll be cured of mortality itself.

These ideas, however, are hardly new. They appeared in nascent form as far back as Plato. Then, during the Enlightenment, they grew stronger, with the promise of a blank-slate society built upon rationalism and science, in which a better type of human would emerge. Today’s Tech Utopians, though mostly claiming to be libertarians, are attempting the same projects — only this time they plan to use AI and biotech to achieve their goals. Elon Musk, for one, envisages a “future of abundance” once AI reaches human-level intelligence (so-called AGI)."

unherd.com/2025/05/the-cruelty

#Utopianism #TechUtopianism #SiliconValley #AGI #Science #Abundance

2023-06-05

introducing the new AR headset

#wwdc #cult #TechUtopianism

children lime and blue speedo googles

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