Open Banking Is Dead, TechnoOptimists Want A War

3 minute read

Open Banking Is Dead, TechnoOptimists Want A War

This week on the podcast we're talking about the government that hasn't lived up to its promise to innovate for the good of its citizens, and the technology experts who believe that governments shouldn't be making these decisions in the first place. Keep your mouth shut.

“What happens when technologists decide that what they do is more important than the government and they don’t want to play by the rules?”

Things seem to be moving in favor of open banking. Although the desire for financial innovation and competition through open banking is not technically dead, it appears to be dead in the cold morning light. Minister Freeland has announced new promises to make banking more affordable, but none of this will be necessary if the original promise of structural change is kept. Is middleman banking a half-measure or a big white flag? This is unfortunate because it looks like the #FreeBoswell team is starting to win hearts and minds.

Speaking of rhetorical appeals, Marc Andreessen, general partner at a16z, made a statement to Techno-Optimist. It is bad in many ways, and many well-meaning critics point out its flaws more carefully than they point out my university philosophy.

But as a podcaster, you know that we encourage honest, deep readings of complex topics that lead to dialogue and greater understanding. My biggest problem with the Techno-Optimist Manifesto is not what's wrong with the document, but rather what it purports to do: offer a forgettable, ahistorical shortcut that provokes militant dualism rather than deep thought.

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I am not trying to be polemical, but rather can easily point out the harmful effects that lie beneath the entire surface of the document. The phrase “Be our ally in the pursuit of technology, abundance and life” sounds like a warm hug, but is based on the belief that any limitation in the pursuit of technology is the enemy (the list of enemies in the statement is excellent). . .

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Perhaps it is no coincidence that this statement comes just weeks before US President Joe Biden signed an executive order regulating artificial intelligence. We've talked about the challenges of regulating AI on this podcast before and I don't want to believe they've been solved, but I'd like to highlight the response from the opinion author. Like the image above (also from Andreessen's Twitter account), it doesn't evoke an optimistic mood. It is as if optimism has been used as a weapon.

Before I make the “I’m only doing this for the memes” argument, let me remind you of the last 15 years of the internet, or the concept of propaganda in general.

So is this tech podcast anti-tech or techno-pessimist (techno)? NO! We simply want to balance our enthusiasm for technology with a healthy skepticism about the claim that technology is an end in itself.