People in past eras have thought about the future in very different ways. For example, the Jetsons evokes a time when many people were optimistic about a life full of tech gadgets - in contrast to the dystopian scenarios that surround us today. On this Techtonic, Glenn Adamson discusses his book “A Century of Tomorrows,” on how writers, thinkers, and leaders have imagined the future over the past 100 years.
Ever since Jobs began selling the first sleek Apple II’s, digital technology has been touted as America’s pride and future. In its own geeky way, tech spoke truth to power. But now, says Stanford professor of social ethics of science and technology Rob Reich, “an extraordinarily tiny number of billionaires who control the information ecosystem have made allyship with the most consequential and fearsome political power in the world. There’s never been a time in history when those things have been combined.”In Levy's interviews in Silicon Valley, he asks if anyone has ideas for solutions:
In interview after interview, I asked them what, if anything, might force the industry to confront its dim longer-term prospects. Their answers were vague. The midterm election? An economic collapse? One Silicon Valley figure suggested, “It could be as simple as 10 Republican senators discovering they actually have backbones.”
Or 10 big-time CEOs, I might add. They can unbend their knees and perhaps revive some of the Valley’s soul. Or at least stop ripping it apart. And while they’re at it, stop making it so easy for the government to usher in an AI-powered surveillance state.
Maybe that’s the thing I got most wrong about Silicon Valley. Those Davids I wrote about seemed fearless and full of verve as they challenged what was possible and rode the power of the chip and the net. I mistook this for character.