Monster

1HAVE WE CREATED A MONSTER?

In which we explore one of the great questions of our time: Have we inadvertently created technology that is hurting our society, our economy, and even our minds?

we love technology. Waze, Netflix, Shazam, Hotel Tonight, Spotify, the MRI that diagnosed Ben’s back problem, Gmail, Headspace, Alexa, even on occasion the corporate travel application. Technology is a miracle — something that has made billions of people’s lives around the world materially better. Including ours.

We — Ben and Paul — have worked in tech most of our professional lives, as IT analysts, management consultants, and technology practitioners, playing a small role in creating and shaping an industry that employs a significant percentage of the world’s working population and is now worth an eye-watering $4 trillion a year.¹ We have unashamedly been technology evangelists. But recently something has changed, and now we’ve become worried. Why? Because we increasingly come across not as tech evangelists but as tech apologists.

“AI is the great story of our time!” we say (on stages around the world).

“Data is the new oil.”

“Everything that can be automated will be automated.”

“Hyper-personalization is key to competitive advantage.”

“Don’t be a bad robot — be a good human being.”

“Contact tracing is key to stopping the coronavirus.”

“Pre-digital dinosaurs roam the earth. Don’t be one.” ...