A strikingly similar sequence gave birth to cloud capital: first, the epic ransacking of the internet commons, made possible by politicians, and then a sequence of spectacular technological inventions – from Sergey Brin’s search engine to the dazzling array of today’s AI applications. In short, in the last two and a half centuries, humanity has had to reckon with two singularities, neither of which required machines to attain sentience. Rather, each required a comprehensive plunder of a commons, a complicit political class, and only then a marvellous technological breakthrough. That’s how the
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