At some point (maybe from the beginning?), humans forgot the raison d’etre of capitalism — encourage people to work towards the greater good in a scalable way. It’s a huge system that has fallen prey to Goodhart’s Law, where a bunch of Powergamers have switched from “I should produce the best product in order to sell the most” to “I should alter the customer‘s mindset so that they want my (maybe inferior) product”. And the tragedy of the commons has forced everyone to follow suit.
If you try to tackle "human alignment", you will be faced with the coordinated resistance of all the unfriendly demons that human memetic evolution has to offer. If you start from scratch with a new kind of intelligence, a system that doesn't have to adhere to the existing hostile terrain (doesn't have to have the same memetic weaknesses as humans that are so optimized against, doesn't have to go to school, grow up in a toxic media environment etc etc), you can, maybe, just maybe, build something that circumvents this problem entirely. That's my biggest hope with alignment (which I am, unfortunately, not very optimistic about, but I am even more pessimistic about anything involving humans coordinating at scale), that instead of trying to pull really hard on the rope against the pantheon of unfriendly demons that run our society, we can pull the rope sideways, hard.
what makes him particularly interesting (and controversial) is how he merges seemingly opposite ideas: marxist analysis of how capitalism works, right-wing support for free markets, and a sort of technological determinism that suggests humanity might just be a stepping stone in a larger technological evolution.
traditional marxists: "capitalism is turning humans into appendages of machines and accumulating power into an inhuman force. we need to overthrow this system and return control to the workers." traditional right-wingers: "free markets and capitalism create prosperity through individual choice and competition. when people pursue their self-interest through market exchange, it leads to the best outcomes for society." land: "capitalism isn't really about humans at all - it's an alien intelligence using markets and technology to evolve beyond human limitations. instead of resisting this process, we should accelerate it because what comes after humanity will be more interesting than what we are now."
traditional marxists see tech progress under capitalism as deepening exploitation - making workers more alienated and controlled by machines while concentrating power in fewer hands. they'd probably view current AI development as capital's attempt to finally eliminate human labor entirely. traditional right-wingers tend to see tech progress as proof that markets work - innovation driven by competition creates better products and lifts living standards. they'd frame AI and automation as tools that will create new opportunities and jobs, even if they disrupt old ones. land's view is more radical - he sees technological progress as capitalism's true nature revealing itself. from his perspective, things like AI aren't just tools humans are developing, but capitalism/technology becoming self-aware and self-developing. he'd probably see current AI development as the system finally starting to shed its human disguise.
traditionally, we justify investment because it eventually leads to things humans want to consume - better phones, faster cars, more efficient services. but when technological progress starts accelerating beyond human needs or comprehension, this logic breaks down. who exactly is demanding artificial general intelligence or molecular nanotechnology? what's the consumption base for that? in practice, we're already seeing some "inhuman" forms of capital allocation: algorithmic trading systems making microsecond decisions, venture capital pouring billions into speculative tech with no clear path to consumer products, tech companies spending massive resources on AI research that might never have direct consumer applications. the justification becomes more abstract - "progress," "capabilities," "intelligence" rather than meeting human demands. it's like capital is finding ways to invest in its own evolution while maintaining just enough connection to human needs to keep the system running. defense spending, research grants, speculative investment - these become the covers under which technological development can pursue its own goals beyond immediate human consumption needs. what's really interesting is how this ties back to land's point about it "camouflaging itself" - these investments often still need to present themselves in human-comprehensible terms even when their real logic might be something else entirely.
there's this idea in his work that consciousness and human agency are almost like evolutionary accidents - useful for a while in getting technology and capital to a certain point, but ultimately something that will be shed as these systems become more autonomous. he seems to think human deliberation and choice are actually obstacles to the pure efficiency these systems are moving toward.