Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough
(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Who Owns the Future?
Written by: Jaron Lanier
Narration by: Pete Simoneilli
JARON LANIER (AUTHOR, INFORMATION AGE PHILOSOPHER,FUTURIST)
Society is at the threshold of change. Jaron Lanier writes about the information age in “Who Owns the Future”. Just as the industrial revolution, and two world wars mechanized human production, the computer and internet “informationizes” mechanical production. Lanier bluntly explains that human employment will decline in proportion to computerization of production.
Lanier is neither posturing as a Luddite nor abandoning the principles of capitalism. He suggests human beings need to understand their changing role in society. Lanier infers a failure to understand human’ role-change will compel disastrous reactions; i.e. reactions like the Luddites of the Industrial Revolution or socialist, fascist, and communist sympathizers of the post-industrial world.
Luddites during the Industrial Revolution–Workmen take out their anger on the machines.
Lanier argues that automation is replacing jobs at a faster rate today than in the 20th century. Human nature does not change. Money, power, and prestige remain the motive force of human achievement.
Achievement in the past is based on productivity from the work of human hands with the assistance of mechanization. The days of human assistance in mechanization are steadily being reduced by computerization.
Lanier forecasts a future of abundance where the goods of life will be available upon request; without the assistance of human hands. No one knows how far into the future humans must travel to arrive at that age of abundance but Lanier suggests it will happen.
Lanier has an abiding faith in human beings’ ability to adapt and control technological change.
Lanier infers human initiated technology will continue to eradicate disease, and manipulate the atomized world to manufacture the necessities and desires of life. Replication machines will become common household appliances to manufacture diverse products, ranging from food to toothbrushes, to “goop” machines that extrude finished product.
HIGH SPEED GOO KNITTING MACHINE MANUFACTURED BY SONY–PRICED AT $30,000.
Industries will become more automated and less dependent on human employment. Lanier suggests now is the time for society to understand the change. As means of production reduces the need of human hands, the contribution humans make to society will increasingly become information based.
Lanier begins to explain the concept of information monetization. This is something that exists today but is mistakenly understood as something that is free.
Examples are Facebook, Google Search, Amazon.com, Microsoft Windows 10, Apple ITunes, governments, and other organizations that Lanier calls Siren Servers.
Nothing is free. The price humans pay is information about themselves, their needs, desires, habits, interests, etc. Every phone call, every web search, every email, every purchase made tells Siren Servers what product they can sell, what price they can sell it at, and how much money, power, and prestige they can accumulate.
Lanier suggests that the concept of Siren Servers should be expanded to include defined populations, common-interest groups, and individuals. Lanier argues that information humans now give for free be monetized. Every person that produces information that increases another’s money, power, or prestige should be compensated.
Employment continues to be an integral part of living life. Compensation is proportioned based on others’ use of provided information. It does not eliminate unemployment but it offers a more broadly applicable potential for employment. It does not eliminate poverty or extreme wealth, but it offers potential for broadening the middle class. More significantly, it does not demand the impossible; i.e. a change in human nature.
Though not addressed in this book, Lanier does believe there is a circumstance where information should be provided for free.
He argues the experience of Taiwan, in the Covid19′ pandemic, offers an example of free information that helps society. Taiwan created an open platform for Covid19 to allow the general public to enter information about their infection, masks that they are wearing, and where they are located. Of course, a key to their success is testing kits to determine infection. American can learn from this. It offers a pragmatic way of safely returning to work.
There is a slippery slope aspect to Lanier’s idea. The slippery slope is the intrusive requirement of government regulation inherent in any system based on information contribution.
In the case of the Covid19 pandemic, the idea would be for the platform to inform the public; not to be used by a central government to direct people’s decisions. It remains an opened Pandora’s box that only leaves hope.
Congress is asking how far down the road of “1984” should a nation go before becoming a creature of totalitarianism?
If the government is in control, numerous questions rise. Who decides what information is being used by another and what the rate of pay should be? One may argue that is a fault of any economic system but how far down the road of “1984” would a nation go before becoming a creature of totalitarianism?
The point is that human nature does not change. Though Lanier may be absolutely correct in societies’ transition from industrialization to computerization, people remain greedy, power-hungry, and hubristic.
Can democratic capitalism resist totalitarianism in an Information Age? America’s two most current Presidents suggest otherwise.
Both Obama and Trump expanded the potential of “executive action” that bypasses congressional oversight.
Also, Lanier’s age of abundance presumes technology will keep pace with human needs, desires, and habits. Global warming, rare earth monopolies, and population increases suggest otherwise.
“Who Owns the Future” is an insightful view of the modern world. Unlike those who revile modernity and pine for a return to an idealized past, Lanier offers an alternative. Lanier strikes one as a Socratic seer of modernity.
Link below is a synopsis of Jaron Lanier’s history: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/dec/29/games.academicexperts
LAS VEGAS REVIEWS AND VIEWS 