A New Alliance Between Tech and the Family?

On February 24, The New Atlantis co-hosted the event “Dignity and Dynamism: The Future of Conservative Technology Policy” at the American Enterprise Institute. In the event’s keynote address, Katherine Boyle, a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and cofounder of its American Dynamism practice, made the case for a new alliance between the tech industry and the family against the overweening power of the state:

We are now living through a generational political shift whereby an industry of builders can choose to ally with the most organic, nurturing, and future-focused institution that nature has ever created: the family. And I believe it’s in the best interest of both tech and the family to do so.

Editor Ari Schulman, in a conversation with Boyle on stage after the address, asked:

You are identifying the state as the main villain in the story of the family…. That hasn’t been the emphasis in how social conservatives have thought about technology, especially over the last fifteen years. It’s been much more the case that tech has been the villain…. Do you essentially agree with social conservatives that tech has been an anti-family force just recently, and you are trying to turn that around? Or are you saying that emphasis has been mistaken and tech has only been anti-family because of the way that it’s been caught up in the state?

Boyle responded that tech critics have been unduly focused on digital innovation — now worrying particularly about AI — when really they should be much more concerned about biological innovation, which, she said, is driven not by Silicon Valley but the biotech industry.

Boyle’s keynote address was published in full as “The Great Tech–Family Alliance” in Tablet magazine. We asked four prominent voices in tech, policy, and political science to reply.