SXSW 2018 Day 3 Session 2: How to fix the future

Session page, including audio: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP80171

Andrew Keen, Author

Everything in our world is being transformed: Transportation, computing and even our bodies.  It seems these forces are out of control, manifesting primarily in four areas:

1. Inequality: we have winner-take-all economies and unaccountable monopolies.  More and more power is held by less and less people.
2. Crisis of joblessness: Economists say old jobs go away, but new jobs will be created.  But the new companies are not employing nearly as many people as the old industries did.  Economists similarly promise the new economy will create enriching jobs, but labor is being moved away from specialization and thus wages go down.
3. Culture crisis of the internet: We were promised understanding, civility and openness, but what we got was alienation, dissipation of trust, and disruption of social norms.
4. Surveillance capitalism: Business model of giving services away for free, with the consumer being the product.

Given these we feel a loss of agency – what can we do?

The only way for us to reimpose our stamp on the world is deploying agency; but the algorithm stands in the way – it’s been designed to replicate us.

Keen suggests we look to a different Moore’s law – Thomas More.  Thomas More, an English social philosopher published a book called “Utopia” in 1516 which discusses many of the same issues we face today.

1. The five main tools to fix the future include:
2. Regulation (GDPR is a good example)
3. Innovation
4. Consumer power
5. Citizen engagement
6. Education