Hello, and welcome to this week’s installment of The Future In Five Questions. This week I interviewed Damon Krukowski, an independent musician, organizer for United Musicians and Allied Workers, and author of the Dada Drummer Almanach Substack. Krukowski, who spoke last year at a Federal Trade Commission listening forum on antitrust in the music industry, told me about how corporations underestimate labor at their peril, the ways in which AI will (or won’t) affect our political economy, and the soundscapes of field recordist Bernie Krause. A lightly edited version of the conversation follows:

What’s one underrated big idea?

Labor unions. I mean, it’s hard to say “underrated” when they achieved so much in the 20th century. But the role they can play in our current technological and political moment is underrated and will, I hope, take the corporate world by surprise. We’re long overdue for a correction, as the finance people say – not from the market (I could care less), but from labor.

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

AI. Not that it isn’t powerful and already reshaping so much of our economic life. But it’s just another technology, subject to the same abuse as any other, and in need of regulation like any other. The power structure of our political economy is not altered by AI. However, it does I think, make more clear than ever how imbalanced that structure is — which might be helpful for those of us advocating fundamental change, even as it eliminates so many of our day jobs.

What book most shaped your conception of the future?

Hmm, not really a fair question so I’ll give you an equally unfair answer: The Great Animal Orchestra, which is an exhibition catalog for a sound installation of the same name by Bernie Krause, the eminent field recordist and ecologist. The book (and exhibition) document natural soundscapes Krause has recorded over the course of his long career, and how those soundscapes have changed since he first encountered them. They are falling silent, as we destroy the life that animated them. It won’t take you long to come to a conclusion about where we are heading.

What could the government be doing regarding technology that it isn’t?

Regulation, of course. But more fundamentally: We urgently need constraints on large capital, which is warping the use of every technology both old and new. I don’t think we’re doing enough good even with picks and shovels, much less AI. Have you noticed how many people are unhoused in your city? How many lack access to clean water, air, good education? These aren’t new problems, but we are failing at them badly, same as we are failing to constrain digital data collection and misuse of information.

What has surprised you the most in the past year?

The SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike — such solidarity, under such pressure, and such a victory for culture workers. More to come.

University Challenge

POLITICO’s Morning Tech U.K. reported this morning (for Pros!) on the warning from Neil Lawrence, the DeepMind professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge, who said academic institutions need to swing their weight around to match the influence of business and government.

“We can’t just wait for the government or industry or regulators to solve problems. This thinking has to be happening in leading institutions,” Lawrence said. “We’re bringing a focus on societal problems like health and education rather than a tech issue focus… If Cambridge can’t do this, who can?” Earlier this month the university announced five ideas for public good-centered AI, which Lawrence called “academia’s version of unicorns.”

Source: Politico
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