Page 26 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

LeaderBoard

THE 10-Q RICHEST BY STATE
rules that really favor big compa-
nies. It reflects their capability

of lobbying and lawyering and
litigating and finding a path

through the mazes of rules.
Your next book is called Life After
UTAH
Google. Why that title?
I’m convinced the Google para- POPULATION: 3.1 MILLION
2016 GROSS STATE PRODUCT:
digm of massive data centers and
$156 BILLION (3% GROWTH)
artifi cial-intelligence determinism
will be transcended in the next era. GSP PER CAPITA: $51,243
(RANKS NO. 29 NATIONWIDE)
Replaced by . . . ?
NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES: 2
I’ll refer you to Gordon Bell’s RICHEST:
law: Every ten years, the rate of
JON HUNTSMAN SR.
progress predicted by Moore’s
NET WORTH: $1.2 BILLION
Law produces a hundredfold rise
in computer cost eff ectiveness. DESPITE HIS best eff orts to give away
Which then requires a completely his wealth, Jon Huntsman Sr. remains
new computer architecture. extremely rich. He and his foundation
A NEW GILDED AGE
have donated $1.8 billion—more than
Technology prophet George Gilder Your point being that we’re now past 150% of his current net worth—most
the ten-year point of Bell’s Law and
believes Silicon Valley’s innovations the cloud. prominently to cancer research, having

benefit only a select few. And lo and behold, a new architec- founded an eponymous Salt Lake City
ture is arising. It will solve the in- institute to study the disease in 1995. (It
claims to have identified more cancer-

Is progress in technology accelerating or creasing concentration problem of the internet, causing genes than any other such cen-
decelerating? which is porous security. It will be millions of ter in the world.)
It is not accelerating. It’s continuing to ad- small data centers around the world, many of Huntsman himself has battled can-
vance, of course, but I completely agree with them mobile, all using cryptography and a new cer four times, and both his parents
Peter Thiel that technology progress is not computer architecture based on blockchains died from it—experiences that have

inevitable. and other inventions. given him a clear-eyed view of mortal-

What do you mean by that? Why would Google not see this? ity. When Warren Buffett invited him to
Recall Margaret Mead’s story of mariner tribes Google is trapped by its own illusion. Th e sign the Giving Pledge in 2009, Hunts-
that once made their living building stream- advances in machine learning that Google man replied, “You don’t have the formu-
la right. It should be 80%. Why should
lined canoes to catch fish in huge volumes. trumpets and preens about are really just ad- someone who has $5 billion give away

Over time, they just forgot how to make the vances in the speed of processing. When their only $2.5 billion?”
canoes. When Mead found them, they were Go-playing computer can play more Go games Huntsman, 80, first landed on The

sitting on the beaches looking at the oceans in a minute than the whole human race has Forbes 400 in 1989, 19 years after found-
with no idea that canoes were the solution to played through all history, that’s not a great ing his chemicals firm, Huntsman Corp.

their food shortage. advance in intelligence. It’s the same intelli- Today it’s a $9.7 billion (sales) giant;
But in our day, learning is stored forever on billions gence just accelerated to terahertz speeds. Huntsman remains a director, having
of devices. It’s not going to disappear. And this creates this illusion for Google and handed the chairmanship to his son
We’re actually at risk of this kind of amnesia. others that machine learning can somehow Peter in December. Another son, Jon Jr.,
We forget the real entrepreneurial sources of gain consciousness and usurp humans. Utah’s former governor, is currently the
U.S. ambassador to Russia.
creativity and progress: invention, summed up Artificial intelligence evokes both excitement and

in technological progress. It’s not good to have fear. Elon Musk, for one, is fearful.
most of the stock market advance [coming Musk is a tremendous entrepreneur and a quite

from] five companies, which buy back their stale thinker. When he starts pretending that
own stock and buy up the shares of their rivals. he’s an ethical visionary, that human life is just
I’m talking about Google, Apple, Facebook, a simulation in a smarter species’ game . . .

Microsoft and Amazon. A rather demoralizing view of humanity.
How does big tech’s success hurt innovation? It’s really nuts. It’s clinically crazy. Silicon
Their success does not represent some funda- Valley should stop trying to make human JONATHAN KOZOWYK FOR FORBES; ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS LYONS

mental change in technology. It refl ects, rather, beings obsolete and figure out how to make
a vast enlargement of government regulations, them more productive again. RICHEST BY STATE BY LUISA KROLL
GEORGE GILDER SPOKE WITH RICH KARLGAARD, OUR EDITOR-AT-LARGE
AND GLOBAL FUTURIST. THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED.
FOR THE EXTENDED CONVERSATION, VISIT FORBES.COM/SITES/RICHKARLGAARD.
24 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2018