Silicon Valley's Grandiose Claims Finally Get Prime-time Grilling

The likes of Facebook, Uber and many other Silicon Valley based corporations like to claim that they exist to help make life better for everyone – but is this the whole truth? Journalist and director of The Centre for the Analysis of Social Media; Jamie Bartlett [Pictured above] sets out to address this globe-effecting question in his prime-time BBC documentary series; Secrets of Silicon Valley.

In the first episode we follow Bartlett's two journeys: One is spent mostly in the corporate headquarters of Silicon Valley asking hackers, entrepreneurs and hedge-fund managers insightful-and-often-challenging questions about their philosophies, technology and their impact on society. The other is spent in India, Spain and California talking to residents, local government, workers and their families whose lives and livelihoods have been blighted by the disruptive services and operating practices of Silicon Valley tech giants.

We see Uber's promise of great earning's for new drivers leading to Hyrderabad families going bankrupt, taxi-drivers demonstrating en-masse and some committing suicide. An old-town-Barcelona Airbnb apartment is shut-down by protesting resident's who are furious that the tech giant is causing landlords to raise their rent to impossible-to-afford levels. Apple attempting to dodge 99% of it's local property tax. Perhaps most forebodingly a former Facebook employee takes Bartlett to his back-country hideout, selected for it's 'defensibility', where he shows-off his marksmanship and survival skills in preparation for the potential collapse of Western civilisation. He says many other tech employees have a similar back-up plan in the event that political solutions are not found to suppress rebellion and social collapse caused by mass technological unemployment.

'But we've been here before, haven't we with the Industrial Revolution? Lots of new jobs we haven't even concieved of will be created! Keyne's [Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren] was wrong!' claim many of the well-off Silicon Valley movers-and-shakers in response to Bartlett raising the question of whether the exponential application of artificial intelligence (AI) to all manner of jobs will result in mass global redundancies. Medical AI pioneer, Jeremy Howard, scoffs at such a line of argument, candidly stating to Bartlett that the impact of the AI revolution is-and-will-be very different to the Industrial Revolution: 'People aren't scared enough. Far too many smart people are sounding like climate change denialists saying; “don't worry about it [technological unemployment], there will always be more jobs” [on the basis of]...this purely historical argument.'

Over the last couple of years I have been devouring all manner of media on Silicon Valley and it's extraordinary entrepreneurs and tech companies with a mixture of wonder and horror. Wonder; at the vision, the willpower, the sacrifices and the sheer amount of work which the likes of Travis Kalanick, Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and other hugely focused entrepreneurs have put into creating remarkable new technologies, services and businesses in the form of Uber, Apple, PayPal, and so many more household names. Horror; at their absolute determination to dodge as much tax as possible, serial aversion to providing most of their employees with decent terms and conditions, and consistent failure to consider the social impacts that their technology is wreaking on the world and our common future.

Following in the critical footsteps of books like Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus and podcasts like Singularity FM, Secrets of Silicon Valley so far appears to be exactly the mainstream, properly-funded, documentary our global society needs as the tech corporations continue to run rough-shod over corporate legislation and enroach into ever more areas of our collective lives.