The Canaries in the Digital Coal Mine
These are the brilliant minds who are countering the siren song of the technorati who can guide humanity in the Digital Age. If we listen to them.
As I’ve written before, the invisible hand of culture has begun to push back on social media in society and we are increasingly questioning the role of Artificial Intelligence. Some are under the spell of the sirens of the technology world; Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Nick Bostrom, Marc Andreeson to name a few. The captains of industry are happily steering their ships towards their siren songs.
Yet there are voices in the wild, calling out. They are being heard. The sirens do not like them, for they fear their sweet songs will be maligned. That we may choose a path other than the one they desire.
These voices are the canaries in the coal mine. The sirens say they are anti-technology, that they will send us back in time, deny humanity the riches and gilded promises of Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, robots.
This is untrue. These canaries aren’t at all opposed to technology. Quite the opposite. It’s just that they are providing a voice of reason and understand human nature. They are the voices that see how we can better steward technologies and how we can not just survive, but thrive in both the digital and physical worlds.
Here is my list of these canaries, these brilliant minds who enjoy technologies, but love humanity the most.
The Canaries of the Digital Age
Dr. Shoshana Zuboff: A professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and the author of three books, her latest being Surveillance Capitalism. Which warns of how people are becoming the raw material for new processes of manufacturing and sales. Where people are neither customers, employees or products.
Jaron Lanier: Author, computer scientist, technologist and considered the founder of the field of virtual reality. His most seminal work is “Who Owns The Future?” and he’s spoken on the risks and issues of technologies around the world. He’s also worked for Microsoft for years. A true polymath.
Dr. Timnit Gebru: She was listed by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people of 2023. A fierce advocate for ethics in AI and building a slow AI movement and rose to fame when Google fired her for being, well, ethical.
Dr. Carissa Véliz: I had the distinct honour to host a live interview with Carissa in late 2023. She is an associate professor at Oxford University at the Institute for Ethics in AI in the Faculty of Philosophy. Her first book, “Privacy is Power” is seminal work. She has a knack for distilling complex ideas into every day language.
Cory Doctorow: Science-fiction author, journalist and activist and best known for his writing on the “enshitification” of the internet and technology platforms. He’s a prolific and engaging speaker and is Canadian-British, same as myself.
Evgeny Morozov: Belorussian author and leading thinker on the problems of technosolutionism. His first book was “The Net Delusion” in 2010. He speaks at conferences and writes frequently and has two other books.
Dr. Yuval Noah Harari: Of course he’d be on the list. Israeli born historian and philosopher and author of three best selling books. Also one of the top voices on the risks of Artificial Intelligence and the founder of Sapenship.
Dr. Alexis Wichowski: A professor of professional practice at Columbia University and author of “The Information Trade.” She’s also spent a fair bit of time working at various levels of government in the USA. She’s also fluent in Mandarin.
Dr. Emily Bender: A computational linguist and professor at the University of Washington. She’s also a writer on Medium with key insights into Artificial Intelligence and occasionally met the ire of the AI elties in Silicon Valley. That’s a good thing.
Dr. Yanis Varoufakis: He is a former minister in the Greek government and author of several books. He’s not shy of controversy and makes solid points regarding the growing issue of techno-feudalism while offering ways to solve this problem. He is a political economist.
Amber Case: She’s a cyber anthropologist and has written four books, including “Calm Technology” and is the founder of the The Calm Tech Institute. She writes occasionally on Medium as well. She studies the interactions between humans and technology.
Dr. Douglas Rushkoff: Media theorist, author, columnist and graphic novelist. He’s known for coining the terms viral media, digital native and social currency. His upcoming book is “Survival of the Richest” and named as one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals.”
There are other bright minds that are voices who step outside the hype of Silicon Valley, bringing reason and pragmatism that can help guide humanity in a time of rapid technological innovation. Who would you add?