Computer Says Maybe

Alix: [00:00:00] Hey there. Welcome to Computer Says maybe this is your host, Alix Dunn. And we have another short, which I know we just did our first one with Jenny Reardon, which if you haven't heard it, you should, but we're experimenting with a shorter format of about 10 minutes related to something that is newsworthy.

And last week, something that felt really newsworthy. Both in the sense that it's not that surprising, but it feels like a really big deal, is that OpenAI has released a blog post because that's how they do their political trial. Balloons is by blog post and then seeing how we all scramble and react, saying, Hey, are you a government somewhere in the world that really wants to integrate large language models in your.

Governance of your country and engaging with your citizens, or do you wanna get involved in these massive data center projects? Um, we're here to help, you know, 'cause we're just a company that wants to help. That's what we do. So I read this blog post and I was kind of shocked to be honest, to see how, [00:01:00] rather than a long tail of developing.

Relationships with governments in closed door meetings, which is already happening, and then having these partnerships emerge for them to just be like, Hey, does anybody want our tech? Just felt a little bit, um, maybe it's a symbolic gesture to kind of tell us the direction of travel, and a lot of those closed door meetings are where the partnerships are being made.

But it felt really surprising to me that OpenAI would admit that they want to be selling state infrastructure with their technology, both because having an American company provide. Back office infrastructure for other governments feels like a huge conflict of interest, not a very strategic thing for states to get involved in, especially given the current politics of the US administration.

And just generally, I think it's kind of weird, but I am not an expert on geopolitics. I am not an expert on how politicians think about outsourcing or insourcing new technologies. But lucky for you, we have Marietje Schaake who's going to take us through her perspective on OpenAI and [00:02:00] its bid for working with countries.

So she is a former Dutch politician and thinks about geopolitics and the relationship between private sector. Technology companies and states just like all the time. That's like her, her jam. So I wanted to hear what she had to say about open AI for countries. So here's our short with Marietje Schaake on what that might mean.

So just quickly. Open AI launches, OpenAI for countries. You're interested in how policymakers are engaging with private company infrastructure. I feel like you are the person that I wanted to get your take on what you think about this. I mean, broad strokes, just reading it, is it surprising?

Marietje: No, I think it's a pretty clever move.

I mean, we've heard some Altman saying that open AI embraces regulation, which of course that it didn't. But that's the narrative and I think. The story of being helpful to [00:03:00] governments, being democratic is very, very welcome on the part of a lot of governments now. And so I think what we see OpenAI doing here is just carving out a position, probably informed by Microsoft too, of being close with governments instead of being adversarial, moving fast and breaking things.

So I see it in that sort of line. But of course, you know, my whole criticism in the tech coup and in other research and writing that I've done is much more about the fact that democratic governments have allowed companies to become overly powerful without sufficient countervailing powers in everything.

Digital, you know, the infrastructure of our lives, of our economies, of our security structures, of our communications. Replacing public values with private interests, and I don't see how that would be solved with OpenAI becoming, you know, a platform for governments and benefiting from all the investments, from the development of data centers, from the insights that they would gain on incredible [00:04:00] amounts of, of information and data.

So. I mean, it's not a solution for the problem that I identify, which is that tech companies are already too powerful and that we actually need independent accountability, more democratic governance of AI and other technologies rather than more corporate governance.

Alix: The expression democratic AI rails. I don't know how you, uh, like when, when thinking about AI infrastructure and kind of where AI is, how do you feel about that as a.

Construct of saying we're building this infrastructure that on top of it, democratic things can happen even if within it, there's not democratic engagement or influence. In your head, how do you think about infrastructure that might be appropriate for companies to provide, I guess, and where this Democratic AI rails might meet those needs and, and obviously do exactly what you're describing or just accumulating more power for the companies?

Marietje: I don't know exactly what it means, but it sounds like indeed they wanna provide the infrastructure for governing a whole bunch of stuff and. Calling it democratic [00:05:00] sounds nice, but the question is, what does it mean in practice? Because one of the key problems that I see, which is structural and very cross-cutting, is the lack of transparency and access to knowledge, access to information about how these proprietary systems work.

This is the case for academics. This is the case for regulators. This is the case for parliamentarians. And so my conclusion or thesis is that you can't govern what you can't. Access or can't understand. And so we have a problem when there's black box systems that provide the foundation for our open societies.

It just doesn't connect to each other. The values are different. The power dynamics are different. And the other aspect of why I think it's so problematic that tech companies are so powerful in many aspects of our lives is that ultimately their bottom line. Is profit is market scale is shareholder returns, you know, outsmarting, the, uh, competitor, maybe attracting the best talent and the best microchips, but it's not public interest or [00:06:00] trade-offs between different groups in society that all need to be respected and notions of needing to both defend the homeland and provide healthcare.

You know, making sure that there is no discrimination because it's a part of your constitution. Things that can be hard and expensive and. Unpopular, but that still need to happen, which those companies, they're not rewarded or they're not mandated to do this. And so the incentives that they have when they have a lot of power are simply different from what the obligations of rule of law respecting governments are.

And I think you can't. Engineer your way out of that. You can't say, Hey, now we've developed all these democratic tools. It's a deeper, more fundamental and also more principled issue that I think we need to look at. And if you look at it from that perspective, then it's also about legitimacy. You know, who should have this power with what mandate, with what oversight.

And it basically means companies should never have so much agency in a, in a society, no matter what the label of the [00:07:00] latest tech product is.

Alix: I mean, one of the things I find interesting about it is it's a single company essentially arguing that it can like laterally build infrastructure across lots and lots and lots of governments, which to me, immediately.

Raises tons of questions about the geopolitics of something like this. Having a territorial American company providing backend infrastructure for other countries just seems immediately like conflict of interest, like it's, uh, across fault lines between the kind of multipolar world that we're, we're seeing emerge.

What are your thoughts on single companies providing that type of infrastructure in terms of how it touches on geopolitical considerations?

Marietje: The rude awakening of what that means has happened in Europe over the past months because we are already. Highly dependent for the backbone of all things tech on US companies.

Not necessarily open ai, but you know, the Microsofts, the Googles, the AWSs of this world. And that seemed fine, [00:08:00] although economically, you know, leading to growing worries that there was just so much transfer of, of Euros to Silicon Valley, whether it was for the use of government, uh, services or the private sector, and that there were just not.

Sufficient European alternatives. But this is now not just a consideration of competitiveness or innovative capabilities. It's a national security concern. And so I think the timing and the, the moment in which people in Europe, uh, you know, big democratic block of countries worry a great deal about how the Trump administration may instrumentalize tech for.

Real geopolitical standoff, including with Europeans, that that has economic consequences. So that basically the position of the United States as a country is very much tied to position of these tech companies, and that the tech companies in turn are really seeking support from the government for advancing their position.

So for example, we've heard. Meta, basically cheering on a trade war with Europe, uh, [00:09:00] and saying, Hey, we now want these antitrust fines to be considered non tariff barrier, something that hasn't happened before. We want you, the United States government to ask a price for the fines that we have received in the European Union for violating competition and antitrust rules, which.

Used to be non-controversial in open market economies. In fact, you know, having a level playing field preventing monopolistic behavior is actually, uh, something that is an anchor of the US economy has been for the past century. So we are discussing this new framing of software at a moment where. The trust in American companies is very low, and the concern about how US technology can be instrumentalized and also the words and actions of tech CEOs from the United States themselves are deeply concerning.

You know, I'm thinking about the Palantir of this world. All the CEOs from Amazon and Google that were lining the inauguration of Donald Trump. Of [00:10:00] course, Elon Musk with his Doge, but also his real really controversial. Geopolitical perspectives on Ukraine, on the elections in Germany, the uk. So I'm curious to see which countries will, will sign up.

Alix: Yeah, me too. Um, what do you think, I mean, if you were, if someone called you tomorrow from Kenya, which I know is featured in your book as an example of global, more tech companies coming in and maybe not doing a great job of helping infrastructurally but contracts continuing anyway, um, what might you advise.

Someone who's interested in pursuing the partnership, like what would you say?

Marietje: I would wanna ask why first? Um, what are the needs? What are the perceived benefits? Because I think when you touch on a country like Kenya and other countries in the global south, there's understandably a lot of sensitivity about the colonial past.

Not necessarily an appreciation for those who wanna quote unquote help. With good intentions. Uh, we've experienced that in Europe and I think there's growing concern also about what the [00:11:00] Chinese agenda is on the African continent with regard to tech infrastructure that is not actually cheap and sometimes free, but that there are strings attached in terms of expectations of support or use of the technology values that come with it.

So I actually. See a growing appetite in Africa, but also other parts of the world, different countries where people say, look, we need our own. Values, views, community engagement to develop and govern technologies, including ai. We don't need this to be imposed from the outside, no matter where it came from.

And so I think following that line of thinking, then having too much corporate power bursting into the countries. Also not advancing community values and the unique nature. In fact, there's a lot of concern about dialects, local languages that kind of get washed over with this dominance of big languages in large language models.

I don't know that I need to tell anyone in Kenya what's good for them, but if they would ask, I [00:12:00] would say think very carefully about what you outsource or what you invest in your own country, because it will have long tail consequences about sovereignty, about digital rights, but also about national security.

Alix: Thank you for that quick take on this big thing. Okay. I'm sure we'll talk more about it. I hope this still makes sense because No, no, no. It definitely does. It definitely does. Um, yeah, it just feels like the perfect example of what it is you describe in your book. My head is like, what the hell? What the hell?

What the hell?

Okay. I hope that was helpful for those of you who didn't know this was happening with OpenAI, you're welcome. And also thank you to Marietje for sharing that. I think top line view of what the kind of state of play looks like in these geopolitical private sector technology trajectories and conversations.

And if you wanna hear more from Mauria, we actually have a long form. Interview with her coming out about her book Tech Coup, which is fantastic. Highly recommend you reading it if you haven't picked up a copy yet. But in a few weeks we, we will have her on talking [00:13:00] about her main thesis of the book, which is essentially that we need more countervailing power from democratic governments to stop the accumulation of power by private sector actors.

And also just generally we need more democratic engagement in decision making about how technology is integrated into state infrastructure, also into bigger and bigger markets and affecting more and more of our daily lives. So look out for that in the next few weeks, and if you haven't yet, as I said, pick up the book.

It's really good. Um, so thanks Mauria for coming on. Thanks to Georgia Iacovou and Sarah Myles as ever for producing this. Um, and if you've got ideas for shorts or if there's a news item that comes up and you're like, oh, I'd actually really love to know who within the computer says, maybe network might have thoughts about this, let us know.

We're really open to figuring out how best to use this format, and we hope this was entertaining and interesting, and we will see you back with our regular programming on Friday.