The Frankenstein Fix: Why Big Tech Goes Astray & What We Can Do About It

Did you get any say in whether or not A.I. will radically transform your world? (Or autonomous weapons, or bioengineering, or many other radical new technologies?) At this very moment, a tiny number of Silicon Valley leaders are making risky decisions that will have a huge impact on the rest of the eight billion people on this planet. They don't mean to cause harm, but their new creations often bring dire unintended consequences: destructive psychological, social, economic, and political results. We call these "side effects," but they're often more powerful than the intended ones. Too many books about technology end with a vague plea that we really ought to do something about these problems. The Frankenstein Fix gets to the deep roots of what tends to cause them—and it provides a broad array of actual solutions. The book offers insights from interviews with many experts, including tech critic Douglas Rushkoff, science historian Stephen Johnson, and psychologist Katy Cook. It also provides a cornucopia of unique features, from an intriguing account of how people have resisted dangerous inventions throughout history, to surprising takes on space colonization and why the Amish reject technologies, to a toolbox of powerful techniques that could enable us to predict—and avoid—future troubles.