Peter Thiel: "Crypto Is Libertarian, AI Is Communist"

At Stanford, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman joined moderator Niall Ferguson talked about “Technology and Politics” in a series called Cardinal Conversations.

Speaking about two areas of tech that people are very excited about in Silicon Valley today, crypto and AI, Thiel said:

If you wanted to frame it more ideologically, you could say that crypto is libertarian and AI is communist. AI is communist in the sense that that’s about big data, it’s about big government controlling all the data knowing more about you than you know about yourself.  So ...Moscow could in fact set the prices of potatoes in Leningrad and hold the whole system together. If you look at the the Chinese Communist Party, it loves AI and hates crypto so it actually fits pretty closely on that level….”

Hoffman on the other hand gave another metaphor:

Decentralized world is much harder to setup.  You could say it’s libertarian vs. rule of law. (anarchy vs. rule of law)

The talk is actually about current technology and politics. It is definitely worth 1hr 30mins listening. 

Thiel's crypto comment starts at around 32min.

在斯坦福大学，Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman和主持人Niall Ferguson，在一系列名为Cardinal Conversations的论坛中谈技术与政治的话题。

当谈到当今硅谷最令人兴奋的两个技术领域，加密和人工智能，的时候，Thiel说：

“你可以说加密属自由主义，人工智能属共产主义。人工智能属共产主义是因为就大数据而言，大政府可以做到控制所有的数据，（运用AI后）比你自己还了解你自己。因此，莫斯科实际上是可以在列宁格勒设定土豆的价格，实现计划经济。中国共产党也是热爱人工智能，不喜欢加密货币。“

Hoffman则提出了不同的见解

你也可以说这是无政府主义与法治