[linguae]

I’ve been thinking a lot more about this lately. Big Tech today is far more powerful than 1990s Microsoft and 1970s IBM ever were. I’m not anti-AI, but the sheer power major players like OpenAI, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta have make me very nervous.

The challenge for computer science researchers who have qualms about working for Big Tech is finding an alternative career path. Speaking from an American point of view, academia has always been competitive, and the immediate future of research funding is uncertain given the political climate. This uncertainty also extends to government labs. The challenge with industry research is that there are not a lot of non-Big Tech employers of computer science researchers. This leaves starting a business, but business is very different from research.

I’m a tenure-track professor at a community college in the Bay Area. While I’ll never be able to afford to purchase a home near my job, I am able to live well as a single man renting an apartment. I have a great career teaching and using my long summer breaks for research and side projects. I like not having to worry about “publish or perish,” and I enjoy teaching and mentoring students. While this might not be considered “successful” for some people who are aiming for a professorship at an R1 university or an industry job at a top company’s top lab, I love my job and believe it’s a fantastic route for someone who enjoys teaching and who also wants extended time during the summer for research and side projects.

[twoodfin]

Big Tech today is far more powerful than 1990s Microsoft and 1970s IBM ever were.

In aggregate, sure, but no company today comes within an order of magnitude of the power an IBM of the ‘70s and ‘80s or a Microsoft of the ‘90s and ‘00s had over the tech landscape.

[linguae]

1970s IBM and 1990s Microsoft were formidable monopolies, but I was thinking in lines of influence over society and not necessarily in terms of market share. The consequences of social media and centralized Web services are much more impactful on society, for better and for worse, than dominance over 1970s mainframes and 1990s desktop operating systems, Web browsers, and office suites.

[mhh__]

Probably true but what was tech is now basically just the entire economy.

[xorcist]

That power isn't even a rounding error compared to their power today. In those decades you had commercial dominance over a niche sector. Today you play kingmaker together with the other oligarchs.

Big Tech today is the media. Taken together, they completely control what a majority of the populace knows about the world. It is considered completely impractical and somewhat suspicious not to carry one of their location tracking communication devices at all times.

Orwell's Ministry of Truth could not dream of what Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI and Apple can do at any time, anywhere.