The People Vs Tech

A provocative report on the "looming dystopia" of the digital revolution and its effects on democracy.Addressing the battles lines drawn between democracy and technology, British technology authority Bartlett (Radicals Chasing Utopia: Inside the Rogue Movements Trying to Change the World, 2017, etc.) meticulously scrutinizes the social and political consequences of our increasingly digitized world and how its control compromises societal frameworks and individual freedoms. He concedes that modern technologies have created greater convenience and improved virtual connectivity, making us "more informed, wealthier and, in some ways, happier." Echoing this sentiment are the tech pioneers pushing an attention economy with addictive apps and gadgets while dismissing prophecies of a systematically dismantled democracy. Bartlett bolsters this assertion by documenting the real threats of algorithmic data collection, manipulative advertising, and the transference of "moral and political reasoning to machines," which, once begun, could be impossible to curb. The author estimates that in less than two decades, unregulated technology, artificial intelligence, and election-rigging psychographics will have successfully undermined and basically decimated the benefits of a healthy, proactive democratic society. The narrative tone is engagingly conversational yet authoritative as Bartlett analyzes the current age of hacked elections and nefarious data breaches. He believes that as each of these events (or worse) becomes more commonplace, democracy and its hard-won tenets will continue to erode. He identifies six key supporting platforms, like active citizenship, free elections, competitive economy, and a shared culture, that keep democracy in motion as a "workable system of collective self-government that people believe in and support." He also paints a clear picture of a future dystopia, unless big tech's influence is stemmed and the integrity of free speech, autonomy, and politics is preserved. His renunciation of tech's tightening stronghold is consistently cogent, as is the viable, counterbalancing arsenal of pragmatic solutions that he provides at the end of the book.Relevant, cautionary, prognosticative insights on the enduring digitization vs. democracy turf war.

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May 7, 2018
Tech journalist Bartlett’s latest (following The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld) is an expansive and palatable meditation on modern society and what he argues is an inherent conflict between digital technology and Western democracy. Bartlett lays out his concerns strategically, identifying six key pillars of a healthy democratic society (including active citizens and free elections). He goes on to show how each principle is threatened in an increasingly data-driven world, illustrating the ways artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies contribute to the “retribalization” of politics, exacerbate inequality, and force the public to relinquish their liberty to “a small number of rogue actors” and “progressive but authoritarian technocrats.” Bartlett offers some common-sense solutions at the end of the book for how government might intervene to protect the people from tech monopolies, including robot taxes and an overhaul of antitrust law. Bartlett’s concise book serves as a helpful primer for anyone looking to understand the societal implications of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal currently making headlines.