Opinion

The Case Against Longtermism in Tech Decisions

Analysis brief · August 7, 2025

Executive Summary

Longtermism — the philosophical position that we should weight the interests of future generations heavily in our current decisions — has gained influence in tech circles. I want to argue that applying it to technology policy decisions leads to worse outcomes. The core problem is epistemic. We are very bad at predicting long-term consequences of technological choices. Applying longtermist weights to guesses about the far future amplifies our ignorance rather than correcting it.

Why It Goes Wrong

Longtermism provides rhetorical cover for ignoring present harms. When a technology has clear negative effects on people alive today, longtermist framing can argue those harms are outweighed by speculative future benefits. This pattern appears repeatedly in AI and biotech discussions.

The framework also concentrates power. Who decides what the future wants? Inevitably, it is the people currently with resources and influence. Longtermism effectively lets current elites speak for hypothetical future generations.

A Better Approach

Moderate concern for the future is a strength of most ethical traditions. We should not ignore our children's children. But treating them as equal-weighted moral patients while we can barely feed people alive today distorts priorities.

Technology decisions should be evaluated primarily on near-term effects with reasonable medium-term projection, and epistemic humility about anything beyond that. Claims about the far future are mostly rationalizations for current preferences dressed in moral language.