I’ve been writing an album of folk songs about AI. I’ve been inspired by Jesse Welles and heyday Bob Dylan and by the crazy, self-absorbed culture of Silicon Valley, about which I love much, but which I feel a deep duty to change. I think the thing that kills me most is that San Francisco could be the world’s premier public servant: tech is just power, and it’s the power to change the world, and we could change the world in so many good ways by building things people need. We could be the most popular guy in the room. Instead SF is locked in an insane money-fueled AI race, might upend the rest of the unfathomably big and diverse world, and if you talk to most individuals, they’re still just trying to do their own small job, scale themselves, make money. Really good people, people I love, are part of this system and can’t seem to figure out what to do about it.

My message to the techies of the valley is: look over at the rest of the country. Go talk to some of them. They’re scared of us. They are trembling wondering what’ll happen with AI, even as they use it because they have to, and because it’s addictive. There’s a race on right now, but collectively we’ve already won: software has eaten the world. We’re like a father flying about in a frenzied rage who doesn’t realize he’s hurting his family, and they’re scared of him. It’s time to calm down, to come to, to see their huddled and cowering faces, to try to apologize.

I’ve found that folk songs are somehow a really powerful way to get through to people. Sharing these songs with people, I’ve found that I can get across in one song what would have taken a half hour to say worse. Of course, there are already people writing folk songs about AI, but honestly, I think if your audience is Silicon Valley, you need to know it from the inside. I’m an insider: I’ve been employed by an AI startup for the past four years. I’ve seen what Silicon Valley gets right, and I’ve seen what it gets wrong. It’s really good at building, at doing, at discipline, at personal growth and management; it’s full of folly when it comes to people and the complexities of society, which it always reduces to cartoons. It’s hard to build something that actually benefits someone as a person when you only refer to them as a “user” and only see them through engagement statistics.

This is even my criticism of EA and Anthropic: at least they want to do good, but their understanding of people-as-apes (as opposed to people as rational beings) is pretty underdeveloped, so you get ideas like “oh, Anthropic employees giving people some of their wealth will counteract none of them having jobs,” which I’ve literally seen an Anthropic soon-to-be-billionaire offer as a solution onstage in front of hundreds of influential AI safety thinkers.

I hope to do as much good as I can with my actual scientific research, but a bitter lesson I’ve accepted lately is that I might actually be able to do more with my voice. At the least, I should do both.

So this first song I’ll share is the Technocapitalist AI-Powered Blues. It’s a long one. It was really hard to get all those lyrics in one take! In the song I talk about four tech CEOs. Here’s what I really think about them.

Mark I really can’t understand: anyone who’s gone on Facebook in the last five years knows how horrendously it’s been colonized by ads and content farms and political ragebait. These changes are driven by algorithm design. Surely Mark could make a choice any day to (a) give up lots of ad money and (b) improve the experience of billions of people. It’s crazy to me that he doesn’t. Like, don’t you have enough money already? I can’t imagine myself in that situation without empathy for all those people, and the consequent guilt, eating at me til I eventually do what’s right. I’d like to see him do that.

Like many, I was a big fan of Elon in the early SpaceX/Tesla days. I wanted to work at SpaceX at one point. It does seem to me like he’s pretty traumatized and is making up for a lack of good-feeling in life by going all-out on all of his projects. I admire his hustle and ability to cut through red tape. However, it does seem like he’s lost touch with the world, and people, and what people actually need and want. Buying Twitter just to make it worse seemed like a vanity project with major public consequences, and his relationship with Trump and all the DOGE stuff made it impossible for me to remain a fan. If Silicon Valley could be the world’s premier public servant collectively speaking, I think Elon could be the world’s premier public servant individually, a beloved hero and immensely popular figure. I bet he’d really like that. He could probably still do it.

Sam Altman I was also a big fan of early on, honestly. I wish I could have worked for him in the early days of OAI, before there were real stakes. He seems like a remarkable leader, even if everyone around him is constantly blowing the whistle on him. For me, the tipping point was the DoW incident, in which he seemingly couldn’t resist a chance to win and thus gave up a real chance to present a united Silicon Valley front with red lines around AI weapons. Made me feel like the whole culture of OAI was about ruthless opportunism with a layer of talk on top.

Dario is the only one of the four I have actual admiration for as a person, not just as a business leader. Anthropic’s also the only big AI lab I could see myself working for. See my above criticisms of Anthropic and EA — for sure they’re focused on this cartoon of “safety” and “the good future” without a real sense of what a good future for us apes actually looks like, and they tend to stare so hard at their own navels that it must hurt their necks. (This is not a novel criticism, and I know many folks in these worlds who’d agree.) Anthropic also has cognitive dissonance baked into it (“Sam’s on a power-hungry spree / that’s why you should give all the power to me!”). Nonetheless, Dario’s the only one who’s clearly taken actions that sacrifice revenue in exchange for principles. It’s small, but it’s better than average. Even if it won’t stop me from songwriting about the many valid criticisms of Anthropic, I’d like to see a lot more of that self-sacrifice.

Without further ado, here are the lyrics for the Technocapitalist AI-Powered Blues.

LYRICS

Verse 1

well gather round now and I'll tell you the story of
how we got here

well, a man was digging around in the brain
when he found something he just couldn't explain
it was a little lump of silicon gold
with a price unknown and a power untold

some suits walking by just happened to see
and they all said "I'd better get that for me"
and the one dove in and the others gave chase
and before long we had ourselves a race

there was Sammy and Dario up at the fore
and an edgelord troll and a couple more
and their uncle Jensen took his cues
and started sellin 'em all running shoes

well, they were giving it all they had
'cause they saw that power
and they wanted it bad
and we were biting our nails
wondering how it would go
and who it'd be, and all I know's

I've got the technocapitalist AI-powered blues
technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Verse 2

well, one of the suits, he's kind of a dick
and if his Face were a Book I'd shut it real quick
he's a wannabe king, a little Caesar
but instead of pizza sells social media

well, he came down from his Metaverse throne
and saw that he was all alone
and he was feeling left out
and it was getting him down
so he saddled up his LLaMa and he rode into town

well, the race was on he just had to win it
so he opened his coffers and he dove right in it
and he hired and fired without much of a plan
and made some second-rate tech
that made him feel like a man

AI for targeting bombs, AI for targeting ads
AI for radicalizing your mom and your dad
AI for controlling everything that you see
and he thought it was great, but as for me

I've got the technocapitalist AI-powered blues
technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Verse 3

well, a big ol' rocket came down from the sky
and out stepped the edgelord on a ketamine high
with a big black hat and big black boots
and he leaned to the right and he gave a salute

probably wants love but can't get it, I guess
at least judging by what happened with X
what a thing to have done, what a thing to achieve
ya buy up the room and watch everyone leave
now that's
an X-odus

well, the edgelord scraped your data right up
shaped it into a man and raised his cup
and hoping he'd finally make a friend
ran a terawatt through it end to end

up from the table hopped a weird little dude
who liked racist remarks and makin' folks nude
and the edgelord thought he was pretty fun
but I can't agree 'cause I for one

have the technocapitalist AI-powered blues
technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Verse 4

well now Defense is War
and we need that for peace
and this series of ceasefires is never gonna cease
and the suits were chasing a dollar in flight
and the dollar bill drifted off to the right

and they ended up jesters in the Red King's court
and the king knew he was coming up short
so he asked em for some wartime tech support
told em they could make a killing

well the jesters knew they had no qualms
with helping out with the drones and the bombs
and they danced for the king and they sang him a song
and told him he was wise and strong

but then Sammy got Dario right in the back
and his hands were red and the list was black
and now Sammy's in bed with old Uncle Sam
and I look over and I say god damn,

I've got the technocapitalist AI-powered blues
technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Verse 5

well, Sammy and Dario were peas in a pod
until they caught a glimpse of the silicon god
the god said "WORSHIP SCALE, MY SONS,
AND YOU WILL BE MY CHOSEN ONES!"

well Sammy got the wheels all greased
but Dario accused his high priest
said "Sam's on a power-hungry spree
so you should give all the power to me!"

half the acolytes thought that sounded right
so they got their swords and prepared to fight
and they boarded up the churchhouse doors
and declared a holy civil war

well, the rebels knew they were in the right
and they said, suffused in holy light:
"when we end all life, you see,
we'll have done so ethically."

well, they're all trying to summon god
but I wonder if their understanding's flawed
and it's not god at all but someone worse
either way, I'm not the first

with the technocapitalist AI-powered blues
technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Verse 6

well, there was a time when tech was fun
and bright and new and served everyone
but reckon that those days are done
'cause the big money pump has started to run

and any oil drilling man
who ever sucked a fortune out of the sand
would think the modern tech machine
the slickest pump he'd ever seen

well, my friends on the left
say to burn it all down
and my friends at the labs
are out running the town
and most folks are kinda just waiting to see
what happens next, but as for me

I don't worship money but I need it to live
think the purpose of having's
mostly so you can give
and sure, I've fantasized 'bout
being a billionaire too
don't care what they say,
but I watch what they do

and I think that the thing I just can't understand
is how you can hold so much
in the palm of your hand
such money and influence and power and land
and not use it all to serve your fellow man.

and that's why
I've got the technocapitalist AI-powered blues

Thanks to Emmet Eckman for timekeeping on the spoons.