Jaron Lanier's, new book,"You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto" is just that. Some might call it a rant, but I found it an enlightening read. It's refreshing to find a technologist whose main goal is humanism plain and simple.
Lanier's successfully bludgeons a lot of prevalent concepts, including: the wisdom of the "hive mind" (online crowds); the concept that the Web itself is an intelligent "organism" in its own right; as well as the whole idea that "information needs to be free" - a clear threat to intellectual property rights. How will creative individuals make a living if everything they produce needs to be free?
He is not a fan of many aspects of social media and Web 2.0, particularly the tendency to hide behind anonymous screen names and viciously attach people without being accountable. Additionally, he makes a good point that the template-approach to social media sites limits the presentation of self in a way that the early days of the Web did not.
This book may raise more questions than it answers, but it's an excellent wake-up call for creators of technology products, as well as the users of technology products. We all need to remember that technology (Web included) os here to serve us - not the other way around.
Comments