The Great Unplugging

Software ate itself...what happens next

Software ate the world and now it’s eating itself. Despite (or because) of A.I. I believe we are leaving the software era and entering a hardware one. An era in which people will aim to disconnect from the network and own their own means of production.

The advantage of network effects are turning into disadvantages. More and more people are starting to notice. In a recent ‘All In’ Podcast episode its group of Billionaire tech co-hosts discussed an interview with Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, where he talked about how A.I company Anthropic was ‘stealing’ its client’s data and way of operating. It’s a version of the same points artists and writers havemade from the very start : that A.I. was stealing their means of production by using their work to ‘train’ itself. We are just moving up the food chain to the level of CEOs and Founders; It’s the same argument though. And just like the artists and writers the CEOs aren’t keen on what they thought they owned being plagiarised.

What will this change? Maybe nothing.

I think it could mean that it becomes more and more important for companies and even individual creators to own their own means of production. That might look more and more like strategically disconnecting from the network and having A.I. programmes that live on hardware and devices rather than the cloud. It’s a bet that Apple are said to be making.

The hardware becomes a moat and a protection against your own property being stolen. Live performances, cinema, and analogue are all part of this trend. They’re set for a revival as people learn the importance in unplugging from the network.