Dark enlightenment

The geopolitical dimension of what is unfolding in Washington will have significant collateral impacts on India

- SHYAM SARAN

The Trump presidency is dismantling virtually all the pillars of the American federal bureaucracy and his hatchet man is the billionaire Elon Musk, who heads a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It is important to understand the ideational underpinning behind these events in Washington. Most of these ideas are from intellectuals who are "techno-optimists." They see technological advancement, in particular artificial intelligence (AI), as the road to unprecedented and universal human advancement. Technological progress, they assert, is both inevitable and irresistible. Rather than trying to slow it or install guardrails, it is best to get out of its way.

Democracy with its notion of checks and balances is rejected as an outdated system that retards technological advancement. Such thinking has given rise to the notion of "dark enlightenment," negating the liberal progression since the 16th century European Renaissance and its vision of 18th century Enlightenment through the gradual embrace of humanistic and liberal values. First brought into the high-tech vocabulary by the British scholar Nicholas Land, it has been adopted by several Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel. "Accelerationism" is an aspect of dark enlightenment. It argues that since technology, in particular AI, will lead to the massive creative destruction of the current industrial economy and widespread political and social disruption, it is best to hasten the process of change to reach its ultimate destination, whatever that may be, sooner rather than later.