Our Digital World
Technological developments over the past 50 years have transformed human life like nothing before. Computers have revolutionized every aspect of life in the 21st century: communication, social relationships, commerce, politics—even creativity. These changes are only accelerating, so it is critical that we do our best to understand—and control—them.
Viral Ideas
The Pandemic and Misinformation
We are in the midst of the greatest revolution in communication technology since humanity spread across the globe, exceeding in scope and impact the printing press. However, experts in the fields of media, journalism, and communications have been warning us for years that social media is using us more than we are using it.
Reality Distortion and Information Warfare
We have created a world in which information flows more freely and efficiently than ever before and yet we are finding it harder to understand one another and to agree on basic facts about reality. It is natural for people to disagree on important issues, but social media magnifies the political, cultural, and ethnic divisions within our societies, almost as if they were designed to do so.
Origins of Fragmentation
In their book, The Axemaker’s Gift, James Burke and Robert Ornstein have shown us that every tool or technology we invented, from the hand axe chipped out of stone to the printing press, took on a life of its own. Each gift changed humanity in ways that were neither suspected nor predicted by the axemakers and their delighted recipients.
The Science of Fake News
The amount of false news online is clearly increasing, with serious consequences. It can drive the misallocation of resources during terror attacks and natural disasters, the misalignment of business investments, and misinformed elections.
Taming the Web
The Evolution of Social Networking
To understand what is happening right now we need understand how the world wide web has changed from when it was first invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. The transition from then to now has been made possible by the pervasive use of computer algorithms.
What Is an Algorithm?
In its simplest form an algorithm is any set of steps that, if followed, will accomplish a goal. For instance, a recipe is an algorithm that a human follows to make a meal.
Social Networks
The Great Attention Heist
Recent revelations by IT professionals and social media executives confirm that their products were intentionally designed to “consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible.”
The Marketplace of Ideas
Social networks, the ones we have belonged to ever since we ventured out of the trees and onto the savannah, have always been our most important source of information.
Algorithmic Gatekeepers
What happens when the social media algorithms become the gatekeepers of our information ecosystem?
Hacking Human Minds
Anything that repeats a falsehood, even if it includes a rebuttal, amplifies and spreads the falsehood. It is not just the trending algorithms that are gamed by propaganda but our own minds.
You Can’t Not Believe Everything You Read
Anything that repeats a falsehood, even if it includes a rebuttal, amplifies and spreads the falsehood. It is not just the trending algorithms that are gamed by propaganda but our own minds.
Reclaiming the Public Square
Democracy and human rights depend on a healthy information ecosystem, and we cannot depend on tech companies alone to act as the arbiters of truth.