Can technology’s ‘zoomers’ outrun the ‘doomers’?

A few years ago, the Oxford physicist David Deutsch came up with a simple and beguiling theory, which he called the principle of optimism.

In his view, all knowledge that does not contradict the rules of physics is attainable through the application of science and reason. The only variable is how long it takes us to acquire it. “All evils are caused by lack of knowledge,” he added, making the case for the accelerated pursuit of scientific inquiry to create a better world.

That is certainly a hopeful thought in a dark time. But it may also be widely dismissed as a naive one. The current horrors of Ukraine and Gaza are not the result of a lack of scientific knowledge. Our collective failure to combat global warming more effectively is not due to a lack of technological capability so much as political will. Surveying the state of the modern world and the possibility of a third world war, many might conclude we are more likely to rerun the Dark Ages than the Enlightenment.

Yet, if anything, the case for optimism is growing stronger as the latest technologies open up further possibilities for scientific discovery. Machines are finding new pathways for research and adding millions of tireless automated researchers to our scientific workforce. Artificial intelligence may yet deliver a much-needed boost to economic productivity, which could ease so many societal strains.

In a lecture at University College London in November, Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind, declared that we were entering a new era of “science at digital speed”, thanks to AI. “We are in the renaissance of scientific discovery,” he said. “AI has incredible potential to help with humanity’s greatest challenges. It will be one of the most transformative and beneficial technologies we will ever invent.”

Hassabis pointed to the example of AlphaFold, DeepMind’s machine-learning system that had predicted the structures of 200mn proteins, creating an invaluable resource for medical researchers. Previously, it had taken one PhD student up to five years to model just one protein structure. DeepMind calculated that AlphaFold had therefore saved the equivalent of almost 1bn years of research time.

DeepMind, and others, are also using AI to create new materials, discover new drugs, solve mathematical conjectures, forecast the weather more accurately and improve the efficiency of experimental nuclear fusion reactors. Researchers have been using AI to expand emerging scientific fields, such as bioacoustics, that could one day enable us to understand and communicate with other species, such as whales, elephants and bats.

But AI does not just open up new avenues of discovery; it also enables us to use existing technology more effectively. One of the most inspiring interviews I had last year was with Lloyd Minor, the dean of Stanford’s medical school and an enthusiast for the adoption of AI in almost every field of healthcare. His contention was that whereas the internet had enabled us to disseminate information, AI was now helping us assimilate knowledge.

This faith in the future has acquired strong ideological overtones in Silicon Valley. The effective accelerationist — or e/acc — movement has been making the case for racing ahead with technological development at full speed. One of the most effusive evangelists of the creed is Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who posted his Techno-Optimist Manifesto last year.

Such “zoomers” berate the “doomers” for needlessly slowing down progress by worrying about the collateral harms of new technology, such as disinformation, discrimination and labour-market disruption. Zoomers tend to have a near-religious faith that technological progress can most often itself solve the problems that technology creates (just as spam filters have purged junk emails). But this philosophy is rejected by many politicians. “We cannot embrace that with AI. It’s too dangerous,” Gina Raimondo, the US commerce secretary, has said, explaining the establishment of an AI Safety Institute.

Whether the zoomers are right will depend on another of Deutsch’s principles: that the good guys tend to innovate faster than the bad guys. “The enemies of civilisation all necessarily have one thing in common: they are wrong. They fear error correction and truth and that’s why they resist changes in their ideas, which makes them less creative and slower to innovate,” he said. 

The principle of optimism is a comforting theory, albeit a largely unprovable one, to carry into the new year.

john.thornhill@ft.com