Power and Progress: How Technology Serves Power or the People

This text examines the fundamental choice facing contemporary society: whether technology should strive for autonomy or serve as a tool to support human competence. The author contrasts the "AI illusion" with the concept of "machine usefulness," pointing out that the current development model often leads to so-called "so-so automation"—automation that doesn't significantly increase productivity but undermines labor demand. Drawing on the work of Daron Acemoglu, the article examines the mechanisms of extractive institutions and the countervailing forces that determine whether the fruits of progress reach the masses or are captured by narrow elites. This is a critical look at corporate accelerationism and a call for the design of human-in-the-loop systems that genuinely increase the marginal productivity of workers rather than eliminating them from the economic process.