Research Catalog
World without mind : the existential threat of big tech
- Title
- World without mind : the existential threat of big tech / Franklin Foer.
- Author
- Foer, Franklin
- Publication
- New York : Penguin Press, 2017.
- ©2017
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 18-7206 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 257 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science, Foer puts the DNA of the very idea of "tech" under the microscope. Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are breaking laws intended to protect intellectual property and privacy. This is not the path towards freedom and prosperity, but the total automation and homogenization of our social, political, and intellectual lives. Today's corporate giants want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our lives. Foer both indicts these companies, and shapes a path towards reining them in.
- "Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon, socialize on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection--a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being coopted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science--from Descartes and the Enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley--Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They're monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance."--Jacket.
- Alternative Title
- Existential threat of big tech
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-250) and index.
- Contents
- Section I: The monopolists of mind. The valley is whole, the world is one ; The Google theory of history ; Mark Zuckerberg's war on free will ; Jeff Bezos disrupts knowledge ; Keepers of the big gate in the sky ; Big Tech's smoke-filled room -- Section II: World without mind. The virality virus ; Death of the author -- Section III: Take back the mind. In search of the angel of data ; The organic mind ; The paper rebellion.
- Call Number
- JFE 18-7206
- ISBN
- 9781101981115
- 1101981113
- LCCN
- 2017008656
- OCLC
- 971956186
- Author
- Foer, Franklin, author.
- Title
- World without mind : the existential threat of big tech / Franklin Foer.
- Publisher
- New York : Penguin Press, 2017.
- Copyright Date
- ©2017
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-250) and index.
- Other Form:
- Online version: Foer, Franklin. World without mind. New York : Penguin Press, [2017] 9781101981139
- Research Call Number
- JFE 18-7206