System error – where big technology went and how we can restart it
Authors: Rob Rich, Mehran Sahamis and Jeremy M. Weinstein
Printer: Harper / Harper Collins
Price: $ 27.99
Pages319
If you hear this, stop me – a philosopher, a computer engineer and a government man, go into a bar – and give us a very detailed and extensive college education about technology, its power and its unintended harm. (And, more often than not, the results of his inventions).
It’s a good effort, but in this book, about half of the three Stanford professors, with constant research, facial expressions, and examples of so many problems, I felt that I needed a strong drink. With the rise of technology companies and their products, they are facing our country and the world.
Make no mistake, it is important to have more connections between technology and the rest of the world, especially from politics to entertainment to communication, yes, just how we fall in love. And it is important to understand how we are distorted and angry and hopelessly addicted to the flood of bad information on devices and gadgets that we can no longer live on.
That authors – Rob Rich, Sahamis, and Jeremy M. Weinstein – joined Stanford to create a comprehensive elementary education called “Ethics, Public Policy, and Technology Change.” According to the school, the goal is to “explore the moral and social impact of technological innovation, to embrace humanity, social science and computer science” and then “to make fundamental changes regardless of the choices students make. Regardless of their major and professional backgrounds, consider the role of technology changers and designers in society.
Well, sign up – if not more than a book form and a full semester, the most serious issues will be a laundry list, each with its own book subject (and existing). These include, among other things, artificial intelligence, algorithms, facial recognition, self-driving cars, privacy, hate speech, and open corruption in the capitalist system. Even Soylent, a drink designed to reduce appetite, shows appearance.
If that’s the case with reading an action-packed curriculum, that’s right, hang on to your favorite Palo Alto campus. Combining all of these topics into one book gives quality to those who do not know it and those who do not. System error For those of us who want to know more about the impact of the technology on the surface, the first step is well written.
Then again, perhaps the authors should be applauded for their motivation to write the book, to the extent that it challenges readers to think beyond a single note computer course that promotes efficiency and improvement without moral rigidity. Instead of asking how and when to make a product, Big Tech celebrates nausea with the ability to grow rapidly and continuously.
Understanding the consequences and taking responsibility for them is rare in the industry, and that problem is exactly what we are.
The authors who teach these tricks know that there is a need for some self-reflection in finding a space between technology reinforcement and technology. But by playing with the challenges, they provide only a short chapter on solutions, making it easy for readers to feel like they can do more with the Silicon Valley truck again. Complex technological phrases like “blitzscaling”, “privacy paradox”, “OKRs” and “risk of success” make it hard to imagine anything to do about it other than burning iPhone and turning off Twitter.
In other words, I’m taking that solentin now.
© 2021TheNewYorkTimesNewsService
.