{"id":2142,"date":"2017-11-02T20:20:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T18:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2017-11-02T20:20:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T18:20:54","slug":"95-theses-about-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/95-theses-about-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"95 Theses about Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Triggers for conversations about our networked world<\/h1>\n
\n

The Theses<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
\n

Remember that the purpose of a thesis is to start a discussion. A thesis is not a conclusion, or a conviction, but an assertion that\u2019s designed to get people talking. It may be right or wrong. In fact sometimes wrong theses are the most productive.<\/p>\n

If a Thesis is a clickable link, then it will open an explanatory page. Eventually all theses will have such pages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1: Digital technology is significantly different from other technologies<\/a><\/p>\n

2: Kranzberg\u2019s First Law of technology rules OK<\/a><\/p>\n

3: Technological progress is not linear, but exponential. That\u2019s why we find it hard to cope with it<\/a><\/p>\n

4: The Internet is an architecture for \u2018permissionless innovation\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

5: Facebook is not the Internet. Nor is Google. Nor is the World Wide Web.<\/a><\/p>\n

6: June 2007 was a pivotal moment in the evolution of the networked world<\/a><\/p>\n

7: Free software is what keeps the networked world going<\/a><\/p>\n

8: Cloud computing is heating the planet<\/a><\/p>\n

9: Winners take all in digital markets<\/a><\/p>\n

10: Surveillance is the business model of the Internet<\/a><\/p>\n

11: Think of Google and Facebook as if they were ExxonMobil and Glencore<\/a><\/p>\n

12: If the service is free then you are the product<\/a><\/p>\n

13: Cui Bono? (Who benefits?) is the first question you should ask before signing up for a \u2018free\u2019 online service<\/a><\/p>\n

14: Surveillance capitalism is not sustainable in the long run<\/a><\/p>\n

15: Your smartphone is a slot-machine in your pocket<\/a><\/p>\n

16: The Internet dissolves value chains<\/a><\/p>\n

17: In an age of digital abundance, attention is the really scarce resource<\/a><\/p>\n

18: The free market was always an illusion. In Cyberspace it\u2019s a fraud<\/a><\/p>\n

19: The technical is political<\/a><\/p>\n

20: Facebook is not a public space. Nor is it Speaker\u2019s Corner<\/a><\/p>\n

21: Surveillance capitalism is undermining democracy<\/p>\n

22: Digital technology fuels economic inequality<\/p>\n

23: The gig economy is creating a new class \u2014 the precariat<\/p>\n

24: Robots that replace human workers should be taxed<\/p>\n

25: The only three regimes that really understand the Internet are the Russians, the Chinese \u2014 and the North Koreans<\/p>\n

26: The Internet could become a new kind of failed state<\/p>\n

27: Social media are double-edged swords \u2013 tools for political mobilisation, but also tools for identifying and tracking dissidents<\/p>\n

28: Most Internet private fortunes have been built on technology that was funded by taxpayers<\/p>\n

29: Algorithms are opinions formalised in code<\/p>\n

30: There is no technical fix for human failings, especially credulity and ignorance<\/p>\n

31: Surveillance chills<\/p>\n

32: The rhetoric of \u2018creative destruction\u2019 tends to downplay the destruction<\/p>\n

33: The Internet changes the nature of the firm<\/p>\n

34: Technopoly is the new secular religion of the West<\/p>\n

35: Technocracy is the prevailing ideology of Silicon Valley<\/p>\n

36: Joseph Schumpeter is the patron saint of digital technology<\/p>\n

37: \u2018Solutionism\u2019 is the besetting obsession of the tech industry<\/p>\n

38: The tech giants love startups the same way that Orcas love baby seals<\/p>\n

39: Companies that are indifferent to democracy have acquired an outsized role in it.<\/p>\n

40: Online licence agreements create grotesquely tilted playing fields<\/p>\n

41: Much of what is regarded as acceptable in cyberspace would be unthinkable in the physical world<\/p>\n

42: Algorithms which affect human lives should be scrutable, and their authors should be accountable for any harms that they create<\/p>\n

43: The only governments capable of controlling the tech giants are authoritarian regimes<\/p>\n

44: \u2018Don\u2019t be evil\u2019 is a strange motto for an extractive company<\/p>\n

45: Google has become a memory prosthesis for humanity. Shouldn\u2019t it then be treated as a public utility?<\/p>\n

46: The \u2018Right To Be Forgotten\u2019 is really just a right not to be found by a search engine.<\/p>\n

47: Most dominant digital technology is created by tiny elites with highly skewed ethnic, economic, gender and social demographics<\/p>\n

48: The Black Box society is not an acceptable future for humanity<\/p>\n

49: Internet companies have social responsibilities that they are neither recognising nor accepting<\/p>\n

50: Everyone has a right to a private life<\/p>\n

51: \u2018If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear\u2019 is a false and unscrupulous argument<\/p>\n

52: Privacy is both a private and a public good<\/p>\n

53: The joke that \u201cOn the Internet, nobody knows you\u2019re a dog\u201d no longer works<\/p>\n

54: Privacy and secrecy are different concepts. Don\u2019t confuse them<\/p>\n

55: Keeping secrets is the way we preserve our privacy<\/p>\n

56: End-to-end encryption of every electronic communication should be mandatory<\/p>\n

57: Having a device like Amazon\u2019s Alexa is like welcoming a CCTV camera into your home<\/p>\n

58: There is no such thing as a completely secure networked device<\/p>\n

59: Forget the threat of \u2018superintelligent\u2019 machines. The \u2018weak\u2019 AI we have now is problematic enough<\/p>\n

60: The tech companies are an ethics-free zone<\/p>\n

61: Our networked world is alarmingly fragile<\/p>\n

62: On the Internet, attack is always easier than defence<\/p>\n

63: All software has bugs and all computers are therefore hackable<\/p>\n

64: The \u2018Internet of Things\u2019 is a security and privacy nightmare<\/p>\n

65: There are two kinds of companies: those that have been hacked; and those that don\u2019t know yet that they have been hacked<\/p>\n

66: Connecting an unprotected computer to the Internet is like driving a car that has had its brakes removed<\/p>\n

67: Hacking pays big dividends. Just ask the Russians<\/p>\n

68: Only stupid criminals operate offline<\/p>\n

69: For most Internet users, convenience trumps everything \u2014 except price<\/p>\n

70: Ashby\u2019s Law of Requisite Variety Rules OK<\/p>\n

71: Social media platforms are not politically neutral entities, even when their owners claim that they are.<\/p>\n

72: The biggest problem with digital technology is that the pace of its development greatly exceeds society\u2019s capacity to adapt to the changes it brings<\/p>\n

73: Technology is the art of arranging the world so that you don\u2019t have to experience it<\/p>\n

74: We always over-estimate the short-term impact of new technologies \u2014 and greatly under-estimate their long term effects<\/p>\n

75: Apps like Snapchat show that the medium really is the message<\/p>\n

76: The Internet is the first machine humans have built that humans don\u2019t understand<\/p>\n

77: Social media are performative spaces<\/p>\n

78: The Internet is morphing into billion-channel TV<\/p>\n

79: For Amazon, books are just commodities \u2014 like toothpaste<\/p>\n

80: Copying is to digital technology as breathing is to animal life<\/p>\n

81: The choice facing our children is: program or be programmed<\/p>\n

82: The secret to success in online business is to pay attention not to what your users say but to what they actually do<\/p>\n

83: We should learn from the wisdom of Wikipedia<\/p>\n

84: The Internet holds up a mirror to human nature. And much that we see in that reflection is troubling<\/p>\n

85: Our networked media ecosystem is orders of magnitude more complex than anything that preceded it<\/p>\n

86: The language of digital capitalism is Orwellian<\/p>\n

87: Silicon Valley is a Reality Distortion Field<\/p>\n

88: Internet giants are essentially massive firms that \u201cwarp the fabric of economic, political and cultural life to their own advantage\u201d<\/p>\n

89: Citizens of our networked world live in a constant state of \u2018informed bewilderment\u2019.<\/p>\n

90: Digital technology is changing the structure of our brains<\/p>\n

91: The Internet has been good for creativity and bad for copyright<\/p>\n

92: The Internet may turn out to be just the terminal phase of the \u2018Gutenberg Parenthesis\u2019<\/p>\n

93: Facebook is many things, but a \u2018community\u2019 it ain\u2019t<\/p>\n

94: Arguments about whether the Internet is a good or a bad thing are as pointless as arguments about whether or not oxygen is a good thing.<\/p>\n

95: We should be aiming for Intelligence Augmentation (IA), not Artificial Intelligence (AI)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Triggers for conversations about our networked world The Theses Remember that the purpose of a thesis is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[758],"class_list":["post-2142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jamuii-20172018","tag-kulty","wpcat-748-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horus.cz\/WProclamatio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}