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Nicholas Carr Says Tech 'Utopia Is Creepy' (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: It probably won't come as a big surprise that Mr. 'IT Doesn't Matter' isn't a big fan of Silicon Valley's vision for the future, a future defined by autonomous cars and the inevitable rise of robots. In his new book, 'Utopia is Creepy: And Other Provocations,' Carr takes aim at the irrational exuberance of Silicon Valley, where tech is the answer to every problem. One of the exuberances that Carr takes particular exception to is the notion that social media is a better, freer form of media than 'old' media, which maybe makes sense coming from a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, but he does have a point. "The old gatekeepers, to the extent they were gatekeepers, have been replaced by companies like Facebook and Google and companies that really now have become the new media companies and are very much controlling the flow of information," Carr told CIO.com's Clint Boulton.
You already *have* a bunch of supposedly superior masterminds controlling what goes on in your life, for reference: University study demonstrates that America functions as an oligarchy.
Granted, they don't micro-manage you. They control you "from a distance," as it were, allowing you just enough freedom that you don't notice the influence they have over you. But control you they do, and control them (with your puny votes) you do not.
On a more related note....
The rise of technology cannot be prevented. No level of political pressure will ever stop it. Each contributing step is in-and-of-itself innocuous, and the economic incentives to take said step are overpowering. We will have A.I. making most of our decisions for us, and we will love it that way. It is just a matter of time.