System Error

Starred review from July 12, 2021
Philosopher Reich (Just Giving), computer scientist Sahami, and Stanford professor of political science Weinstein offer in this timely survey tips for how to “exercise our agency, reinvigorate our democracy, and direct the digital revolution to serve our best interests.” Opening with the January 6 Capitol riots, the authors showcase the tension that marks society’s relationship with technology—social media was used to foment distrust in election results, and the leaders of Facebook and Twitter later leveraged immense power when they banned Donald Trump from their platforms. The authors explore major issues that they posit society needs to grapple with: the rise in the outsourcing of decision-making to algorithms, the immense amount of user data collected by tech companies, increasing automation, and the proliferation of hate speech and disinformation online. Their suggestions for how the country might better balance democracy and technology are evenhanded and nuanced: “A far more aggressive commitment to a right to data protection, alongside government agencies capable of enforcing that right, should be the first critical check on corporate power.” Never falling into the trap of offering easy answers over deep analysis, this study is worth a look for readers worried about the outsize influence of technology on their lives and society.

September 15, 2021
The technological future promises to be a dark one--unless, as the authors insist, technology is pressed into the service of doing no harm, as once promised. Media technology often taps the worst in our instincts, driving misinformation, exploiting gullibility, and even inciting violence. The authors, Stanford professors and longtime familiars in Silicon Valley, assert that the owners and operators of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and others have wrought more ill than good on many fronts: As engineers, they lack knowledge of public policy; as influencers of public policy, such as they understand it, they tend to a hands-off view that resists government intervention; as systems thinkers, they tend to despise democracy and instead, their demand for independence taken fully into account, to favor a technocratic view. Indeed, in one interesting thought experiment, a number of Silicon Valley leaders were asked what sort of society they might form if given the power to do so. They answered that they'd want a big patch of land, preferably an island, and certainly not a democracy as the form of government. Said one, "To optimize for science, we need a beneficent technocrat in charge. Democracy is too slow, and it holds science back." As such, it's no wonder that big tech has allowed for the amplification of anti-democratic views that go from the Ayn Rand-ian to the neofascist. In accessible prose, the authors argue that social media-wrought social engineering must be curbed. Along the way, they examine the effects--sometimes beneficial, mostly not--of algorithmic decision-making, which some enthusiasts argue will one day make lawyers and doctors redundant. The authors insist that such decision-making must be transparent, auditable, and accountable to norms of due process. In this illuminating account, they even offer a few rays of hope--e.g., actual hate speech on the web is surprisingly rare. Of course, they add, rare or not, it can lead to horrible behavior. Of interest to futurists and civil libertarians alike.

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