Modernization, Regulation, and Costs

Culture Wars: Silicon Valley and Washington DC

There is a bit of a change this week. Firstly, News of the Week has now moved to its own Substack post, which is linked in the contents. Feedback says many of you find it useful, while others find it too much to read. So, if you are in the first group, it is here.

Second, Video of the Week has gone. Any good video is included as either an essay or in the news. Andrew Keen’s KeenOn will replace it. Andrew has many weekly interviews, and we will highlight the best ones. Steven Levy this week.

Finally, I am putting sub-headings into Essays of the Week to make them better organized.

This week’s top essay is by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, outlining their plans for an efficient Government. I think the words efficient and government do not belong together. I am starting to believe that Musk and Ramaswamy will not make enough difference. Their manifesto focuses on some much-needed slashing of regulations and budgets using Presidential decrees. But is silent on modernizing the delivery of government services.

This is from their manifesto:

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats — tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

The need to reduce unelected decision-making, especially regarding spending, is not a right-wing idea; it is common sense. I empathize with the sentiment. However, modernization is the best way to bring efficiency.

I suspect they both know that, but their manifesto does not mention it. Instead, they focus on deregulation (good) and procurement (good). But what about modernizing and revolutionizing service delivery using technology? Strangely, they are silent. I hope that is an error of omission and not a plan.

Government as a service to the people is a long-forgotten purpose. Musk and Ramaswamy should be judged by how well they deliver on that — spending less and delivering more to improve our experience of dealing with government.

I am not optimistic that they will do so based on the focus on regulations, bureaucracy, and procurement and the complete absence of any narrative around modernization.

What is the Government for? That is a question we all need a better answer to.

This week’s essays covering AI mainly adopt a somewhat optimistic tone on what we can expect. Significantly, Mark Benioff weighs in on Agents, and I used Cursorto build a live ticker for private companies. Cursor acted as my programming agent. Benioff wrote in Time magazine (which he owns). How Digital Workers and Agents Will Lead to an Unlimited Age links AI to abundance. This is becoming a popular theme. When connected to the population-related stories about declining birth rates, it seems clear that more being produced by fewer humans is likely and possibly desirable, depending on how that abundance is distributed.

There is also alarming news on the regulatory front. The FTC is seeking to probe Microsoft and Uber, while the DoJ is seeking to break up Google. Post of the week points to Prof Herb Hovenkamp’s piece in the Times (New York) arguing that nobody would benefit from a Google breakup. It will not be long until Lina Khan vacates her position, but the FTC is going down fighting.

I will leave you to decide about the points made in the Politicization of the American University (and really, not just American universities). The essay is excellent and well-researched, and I mostly agree with it.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I am thankful you receive this newsletter in your inbox almost every week.

Hat Tip to this week’s creators: @lizzadwoskin, @JStein_WaPo, @jacobbogage, @faizsays, @kwharrison13, @tedgioia, @ShapiroDoug, @2020science, @Benioff, @jsomers, @GoodwinMJ, @tomaspueyo, @othhughes, @mariogabriele, @RogerPielkeJr, @Dev__Digest, @StevenLevy, @ajkeen, @MagnaDing, @pcl_ctic, @Sherman1890

Contents

• Editorial:
• Essays of the Week
• Government and Tech
• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government
• Musk and Ramaswamy race to build a ‘DOGE’ team for war with Washington
• Innovation and AI
• The Levers of Innovation
• Power Is Shifting Rapidly to Indie Creators
• Why Ben Affleck is Probably Wrong
• Artificial intelligence, agency, and the emergence of humans as AI amanuenses
• How Digital Workers and Agents Will Lead to an Unlimited Age
• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Has Thoughts on AI Agents, Automation, And The Future of Your Job
• A Revolution in How Robots Learn
• How to use Cursor with ChatGPT or Claude.ai.
• Population and Growth
• Britain’s fertility crisis -we need to get serious before it’s too late
• The Moral Case for More People on Earth
• Data
• Sleepwalking into Obsolescence
• Society
• Politicization of the American University
• Venture Capital
• Mullet Capitalists
• Keen On of the Week
• Steven Levy — 20 years of Tech Coverage
• Startup Of the Week
• Elon Musk’s xAI Game Studio
• Post of the Week
• Breaking Up Google Would be a Big Mistake
• News of the Week (now published separately)