Back to the Future with Jaron Lanier
I just came across a book review I wrote 10 years ago about a futuristic book by Jaron Lanier of Microsoft. Posting for the fun of it.
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Alexandra R. Lajoux
5.0 out of 5 stars
?Wealth of Insights on Economy, Technology, and Culture from a Genuinely Original Thinker
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
Who owns the future? According to technologist Jaron Lanier, an Internet pioneer currently with Microsoft, it is already in the ever-tightening grip of those who control elite and/or coordinated computers on a network. The trend toward concentration of power and wealth around these "siren servers"--whether used for algorithmic trading, supply chain management, search engines, or social media is stalling capitalism by decimating the middle class using their own big data asymmetrically, with dire results for even the fortunate few in the long run. That's the frightening yet believable tomorrow Lanier paints for a global economy that is becoming increasingly based on digitized information run by algorithms--the Information Economy.
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To be sure, not all economic functions are digitized and automated; there are still some actions conducted by compensated humans in real time, brick and mortar spaces. People and talent--the subject of the NACD's 2013 NACD Blue Ribbon Commission--still matter. Yet looking at large economic systems in this current era of free and digitized information, it is easy to see that the compensated human realm is receding while the realm controlled by servers is expanding. Familiar examples include the shift of momentum from articles and books to search engines; from record albums to downloads and streams, and the trend from proprietary to "open source" software. These trends have caused the significant net loss of jobs (and entire companies) in publishing, entertainment, and even IT. That's been a poignant lesson for Lanier himself, a dreadlock-sporting author, musician, and technologist.
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And it isn't only the "long-hairs" who will be out of work in the possible future: people from all walks of life up to the highest level are vulnerable to the trend. Lanier predicts that "as technology advances in this century, our present intuition about the nature of information will be remembered as narrow and shortsighted. We can think of information narrowly only because sectors like manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and transportation aren't yet particularly automated or `net-centric. But eventually most productivity will become software-mediated."
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In his chapter on "Mass Unemployment Events," Lanier goes through a number of possible scenarios wherein humans get replaced by what are essentially robots--in manufacturing, 3-D printers could cause mass closings of factories and retailers; in transportation, smart cars could replace drivers; in education, free and/or self-directed education via the internet could reduce academic employment; in healthcare, robots and online meds are already fulfilling some functions once performed by nurses and pharmacists. And so he says, "The key question isn't `How much will be automated,' it's how we'll conceive of whatever can't be automated at a given time."
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Indeed, taking Lanier's argument to a logical extreme, if director decisions could be automated (if x then y...), this impoverishment could befall even corporate directors; the highest authority in the corporate world would be considered dispensable. An extreme example on this reviewer's part, to be sure, but it may help directors empathize with the plight of people whose human vocations have become obsolete.
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Lanier makes a strong case for a new kind of capitalism for that would bring the intelligence and energy of a market economy to the information era using available technology. The much-needed transformation of the Information Economy will not come from unions or government but from ordinary people acting as free economic agents.
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Harkening to time-honored principles of private property, limited government, and human worth, and drawing on a wealth of technological, economic, and political facts, Lanier proposes a new system for compensating and accounting for for intellectual property--including the information from ordinary people that is currently being mined without their permission much less compensation--and shows how Corporate America can play a major role in bringing this new future to our doorsteps.
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PS: I like to read physical books with a pencil in hand, underlining key passages to share with friends/colleagues. Every page of this book has multiple underlinings. My advice: read every word from cover to cover. You will be the richer for its wealth of insights on technology, the economy, and our (imperiled) culture.
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