We face a choice about our future.
Do we want to envision, write and be in charge of a future in which we are respected as individuals and in which we can enhance and enrich our society? Or do we want our future to be written by a few giant corporations, whose technology, algorithms and devices steadily chip away at our humanity? It’s a choice between human beings and machines. Everything — and I mean everything — hinges on this decision.
The future will be digital. There is no turning back the information technology revolution that has transformed our lives and blurred the lines between our digital and physical existences. The internet, the most profound expression of that digital transformation, will necessarily remain integral to our economic, social and political organizations. Still, the future I would choose is one in which the internet has a far more positive impact on our lives than it does today. It’s a digital future that has humans at its center.
The internet began as a utopian dream. The idea was first shaped, at least partly, by military considerations. But the internet of popular imagination, the one that some visionary academics, Silicon Valley’s big-thinking coders, and a community of cyber-hippies latched on to in the 1980s and ‘90s, the internet of mass disruption and freedom of information — that idea of an internet was one that was going to liberate us. Powerful elites would no longer control information systems or dominate the commercial networks that defined the economy. The “marketplace of ideas” would organically bubble up the best of humanity and give scientists and innovators, wherever they might be, a real chance to improve life on this planet. It would be an internet of freedom, of unfettered access, of inclusion, of diversity, of collaborative and constructive connections between all people everywhere.
That’s not the internet we ended up with.
As it currently functions, the internet — despite all the conveniences and connectivity it has unleashed — is the primary cause of a pervasive unease in the United States and other democratic societies. The internet explains why our national arguments seem intractable. It’s why every issue is reduced, in public debate, to the lowest common denominator. It’s why youth suicide rates are rising, why politics is filled with toxicity and why many now dread Thanksgiving dinners. It’s why some people in California, much like their red state counterparts in Texas, are seriously contemplating secession. It’s why armed guards are deployed at school board meetings. It is why a massive law enforcement effort has failed to curtail the spread of a deadly fentanyl epidemic, with supply routes of the drug secretly coordinated over social media.
It’s why Americans’ confidence in a variety of civil institutions, as measured by the Edelman Trust Barometer, is at an all-time low. It’s why people are calling this a post-truth society.
Read the full excerpt on The Deseret News’ website here. You can learn more about OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age on ourbiggestfight.com.