Eight years ago, the US election results in November deeply shocked the small staff at Backchannel, the tech publication I led. The morning after, an editor posted on our Slack that working on a technology story seemed tone-deaf, if not pointless. On a plane from New York to San Francisco, I wrote a column to respond to that impulse, for myself and my colleagues as well as for readers. I argued that regardless of the magnitude of this event, one thing had not changed; was the greatest story of our time still the technological revolution we were going through. Disruptive politicians, even destructive ones, can come and go – or refuse to go. But the chip, the network, the mobile device and everything they brought with them changed humanity, and perhaps what it means to be human. Our job was to capture that epic transformation, regardless of who was in political charge. The headline of my column was: “The iPhone is bigger than Donald Trump.”
This week, Trump was re-elected president despite… oh hell, I won't get into the litany of what appear to be slam-dunk disqualifications. You've heard it all, and for the majority of voters it doesn't matter. It's an incredible story and the next few years will undoubtedly be history. Maybe not in a good way. Perhaps in a very bad way for a country where many expected to celebrate its enduring values on America's 250th birthday. (In the spirit of unity, I use the qualifier “maybe,” as losers need to be humble, and who knows what lies ahead.)
Yet I do not deviate from the thought I had in 2016. As Stewart Brand once said, “Human nature doesn't change much; science does that, and the change happens, irreversibly changing the world.” What happens in technology and science remains the activity that will ultimately have the greatest impact on our species. Hundreds of years later, future generations (and possibly Ray Kurzweil) will look back on this time and identify it as the period when microchips and neural network software changed everything. And who was that strong man with the funny hair who crashed the country that used to occupy real estate in the Western Hemisphere? I no longer manage a publication and instead represent just one voice on a much larger staff. (For WIRED's institutional vision, note my boss's words, which I endorse.) So, speaking for myself, I emphatically repeat my 2016 purpose statement, with a slight modification: Artificial intelligence is bigger than Donald Trump.
Of course, journalists must vigorously cover Trump's second presidency, with relentless demands for accountability. In the short term – for some of us, it could be the entire remaining term! – what happens in our community and our country will have a greater impact on our daily lives than the latest version of Claude, ChatGPT or even Apple Intelligence. (Sorry, Tim Apple.) If you lose your health care or your reproductive rights, or end up in a deportation camp or a prison cell because of the policies of our returning president, the knowledge that AI, mixed reality and quantum computers might one day redefine us does not reduce the pain.
Also, those of us who deal with technology will surely end up reporting on the Trump presidency; policy, as always, influences the course of technology. (Remember, the US government created that thing called the Internet.) Right now, a debate is raging about how, and whether, we should regulate or restrict AI, a technology that some are calling “the latest invention.” I'm already hearing discussions about the new administration rejecting the comprehensive executive order on AI that Joe Biden imposed. Some worry that the new president's mega-advisor, Elon Musk — who has his own AI company and is building AI into his other ventures, such as Tesla and Neuralink — will have outsized and possibly undue influence over government policy and government contracts. I've also heard speculation that the move to regulate AI could be trumped by the threat of China's large-scale efforts in this area. That's important, because the basic rules of today's AI, and the idiosyncrasies of its inventors, could influence whether the worst fears about the technology come true.
So the day after Donald Trump was re-elected, I visited an AI company and interviewed one of its leaders and a top engineer. Yes, on the walk back to the office I thought about the election results and became depressed again. But I will finish the article on that company and then do another article, keeping to the technical pace as long as my broken heart continues to beat. After all, AI is still the biggest story in town.
