Could Silicon Valley be leading us into a Tech Dystopia?

by Dwayne, CEO of Medallion XLN

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” - John Ray

Life often imitates art. Recent developments in technology have us living the fantasies of science fiction writers from the 1980s. Video calls were the thing of imagination but is now an accessible feature at every organization. The Metaverse introduced in Snow Crash in 1992, is now an active place that people visit whenever they want. As we all know, not all technological predictions of the past are of a utopia. The Skynet Corporation from the Terminator series predicts a terrifying dystopia, where machines hunt humans to near extinction. This begs the question, is our current technological trajectory leading us to a Utopian paradise or a Dystopian hellscape?

In my view, the current leaders in technology are Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Google. Mark Zuckerberg, love him or hate him, Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp & Oculus. Everyone uses at least one of these apps daily. His companies have been leaders in improving web & mobile standards over the last decade. Brilliant as he is, Mark’s recent Cambridge Analytical scandal, how he sells user data & how he purchases all possible competitors, raises concern about his willingness to honor an individual’s sovereignty. Whatever future Mark is building, he won’t give us a chance to opt-out of it.

Jeff Bezos figured out a way to become the largest retailer in the world behind Alibaba. His distribution networks across the world allow goods to reach our doorsteps within 2 days of ordering. Jeff’s many innovations easily demonstrate how he became the richest man in the world. That being said, many of his low-wage employees complain about being overworked and underpaid. Amazon’s response to their complaints is to replace them with robots. Could his endless ambitions set us on a path to be ruled by machine overlords?

Elon Musk is probably the most fascinating person on this list. Elon runs a Spaceship company, an electric car company, an AI company, a Wi-Fi satellite, and somehow has enough time left in the day to be a professional shit-poster on Twitter. Here is a man that took millions of dollars he earned on the sale of PayPal and gambled it on electric cars & rockets. At the time, these were industries that few entrepreneurs participated in because of the costs and risks associated. Elon single-handedly built those markets from the ground up to be profitable. As impressive as Elon is, he’s never been shy about showing his support for the violent overthrow of Bolivia to get access to their lithium-ion resources. His cavalier attitude towards regulation hints at someone who doesn't like playing by the rules. Elon's endless resources to create new high-impact companies while trolling on Twitter, makes you wonder how well each of his companies are run and could they be the gateway to the next Extinction Level Event.

Finally, Google owns the internet. Most people use Chrome as the best browser, Gmail as the best email provider, Google as the best way to search online, YouTube as the best way to watch videos online and I can go on and on. The “Do No Evil” brand experienced controversy for programming the AI for military drones used to bomb people in Yemen & Somalia. As well as censoring anyone on their platform that dares to go against the government-approved mainstream consensus. Trusting Google with our future is begging for a 1984 style society that will disappear everyone who doesn’t conform to their community guidelines.

All the aforementioned companies provide amazing innovations that make our life easier, but they make questionable decisions. The government allows them to run wild because of all the tax revenue they generate, so there are no checks and balances for the tech companies. Tech companies can censor with impunity, and there is no recourse for anyone who gets their life’s work wiped out in an instant by censor happy tech giants. Any of these companies can create a rogue AI on purpose or by accident that sends us back to the Stone Age, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

I’ve been playing a lot of Horizon: Forbidden West on PS5 which inspired this entire article.

We need a hero. We need a savior. We need…

Decentralization & Smart contracts are the only way to stand up to the tech giants. Blockchain visionaries like Vitalik Buterin & Dan Larimer create incentive-driven protocols such as Ethereum & EOS that drive democracy within innovation. Where there would be no recourse if Elon Musk, for example, were to release an army of Tesla bots with Gatling guns for arms. The governance that smart contracts provide could defund that company and fund a company that counteracts those Killer Tesla bots. Speculation, FOMO & greed could become a powerful way to organize the will of the people to provide checks and balances for the billionaires who have had so few regulations for so long. Beyond that, Smart contracts can organize society's elections to become fair and open, drug prices can be regulated in an open market & health insurance could become available for all without going through complicated middle-man systems.

Follow Medallion XLN as we provide commentary on the Metaverse XR, Blockchain, NFTs and Artificial Intelligence. We are also building tools to help users monetize the internet.

if you like what you read and would like to support Medallion XLN’s growth, send ERC20 tokens here: 0x4E8357700EB25C9c5c3E7853F9430938EEBA26f0