virtual reality – Technology Liberation Front https://techliberation.com Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology Thu, 03 Apr 2025 23:20:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 6772528 Running List of My Research on AI, ML & Robotics Policy https://techliberation.com/2022/07/29/running-list-of-my-research-on-ai-ml-robotics-policy/ https://techliberation.com/2022/07/29/running-list-of-my-research-on-ai-ml-robotics-policy/#respond Fri, 29 Jul 2022 12:51:54 +0000 https://techliberation.com/?p=77020

[last updated 4/3/2025 – Check my Medium page for latest posts]

This a running list of all the essays and reports I’ve already rolled out on the governance of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotics. Why have I decided to spend so much time on this issue? Because this will become the most important technological revolution of our lifetimes. Every segment of the economy will be touched in some fashion by AI, ML, robotics, and the power of computational science. It should be equally clear that public policy will be radically transformed along the way.

Eventually, all policy will involve AI policy and computational considerations. As AI “eats the world,” it eats the world of public policy along with it. The stakes here are profound for individuals, economies, and nations. As a result, AI policy will be the most important technology policy fight of the next decade, and perhaps next quarter century. Those who are passionate about the freedom to innovate need to prepare to meet the challenge as proposals to regulate AI proliferate.

There are many socio-technical concerns surrounding algorithmic systems that deserve serious consideration and appropriate governance steps to ensure that these systems are beneficial to society. However, there is an equally compelling public interest in ensuring that AI innovations are developed and made widely available to help improve human well-being across many dimensions. And that’s the case that I’ll be dedicating my life to making in coming years.

Here’s the list of what I’ve done so far. I will continue to update this as new material is released:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021 (and earlier)

]]> https://techliberation.com/2022/07/29/running-list-of-my-research-on-ai-ml-robotics-policy/feed/ 0 77020 Governing Virtual Reality Social Spaces https://techliberation.com/2018/03/05/governing-virtual-reality-social-spaces/ https://techliberation.com/2018/03/05/governing-virtual-reality-social-spaces/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2018 14:56:34 +0000 https://techliberation.com/?p=76241

“You don’t gank the noobs” my friend’s brother explained to me, growing angrier as he watched a high-level player repeatedly stalk and then cut down my feeble, low-level night elf cleric in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. He logged on to the server to his “main,” a high-level gnome mage and went in search of my killer, carrying out two-dimensional justice. What he meant by his exclamation was that players have developed a social norm banning the “ganking” or killing of low-level “noobs” just starting out in the game. He reinforced that norm by punishing the overzealous player with premature annihilation.

Ganking noobs is an example of undesirable social behavior in a virtual space on par with cutting people off in traffic or budging people in line. Punishments for these behaviors take a variety of forms, from honking, to verbal confrontation, to virtual manslaughter. Virtual reality social spaces, defined as fully artificial digital environments, are the newest medium for social interaction. Increased agency and a sense of physical presence within a VR social world like VRChat allows users to more intensely experience both positive and negative situations, thus reopening the discussion for how best to govern these spaces.

When the late John Perry Barlow, the founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, published his declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace in 1996, humanity stood on the frontier of an online world bereft of physical borders and open to new emergent codes of conduct. He wrote, “I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies [governments] seek to impose on us.” He also stressed the role of “culture, ethics and unwritten codes” in governing the new social society where the First Amendment served as the law of the virtual land. Yet, Barlow’s optimism about the capacity of users to build a better society online stands in stark contrast to current criticisms of social platforms as cesspools of misinformation, extremism, and other forms of undesirable behavior.

As the result of VRChat’s largely open-ended design and its wide user base from the PC and headset gaming communities, there is a broad spectrum of user behavior.  On one hand, users experienced virtual sexual harassment and the incessant trolling of mobs of poorly rendered “echidna” consistent with the Ugandan Knuckles meme. However, VRChat is also the source of creativity and positive experience including collective concerts and dance parties. When a player suffered a seizure in VRChat, players stopped and waited to make sure he was okay and sanctioned other players who were trying to make fun of the situation. VRChat’s response to social discord provides a good example of governance in virtual spaces and how layers of governance interact to improve user experiences.

Governance is the process of decision-making among stakeholders involved in a collective problem that leads to the production of social norms and institutions. In virtual social spaces such as VRChat, layers of formal and informal governance are setting the stage for norms of behavior to emerge. The work of political scientist Elinor Ostrom provides a framework through which to understand the evolution of rules to solve social problems. In her research on governing a common resource, she emphasized the importance of including multiple stakeholders in the governing process, instituting a mechanism for dispute resolution and sanctioning, and making sure the rules and norms that emerge are tailored to the community of users. She wrote, “building trust in one another and developing institutional rules that are well matched to the ecological systems being used are of central importance for solving social dilemmas.” Likewise, the governance structure that emerge in VRChat is game-specific and dependent on the enforcement of explicit formal and informal laws, physical game design characteristics, and social norms of users. I delve into each layer of governance in turn.

At the highest level, the U.S. government passed formal laws and policies that affect virtual social spaces. For example, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act governs computer-related crimes and prohibits unauthorized access to user’s accounts. Certain types of content, such as child pornography, are illegal under federal law. At the intersection of VR video games and intellectual property law, publicity rights govern the permissions process for using celebrities’ likenesses in an avatar. Trademark and copyright laws determine limitations on what words, phrases, symbols, logos, videos or music can be reproduced in VR and what is considered “fair use.”

Game designers and gaming platforms can also employ an explicit code of conduct that goes beyond formal federal laws and policies. For example, VRChat’s code of conduct details proper Mic etiquette and includes rules about profanity, sexual conduct, self-promotion and discrimination. Social platforms rely on a team of enforcers. VRChat has a moderation team that monitors virtual worlds constantly. External reviewers look at flagged content and in-game bouncers monitor behavior in real time and remove the bad eggs.

By virtue of their technical decisions, game designers also govern the virtual spaces they create. For example, the design decision to put a knife or a banana in a VR social space will affect how users behave. VRChat has virtual presentation rooms, court rooms and stages that prompt users to do anything from singing, to stand-up comedy to prosecuting other users in fake trials. Furthermore, game designers can include in-game mechanisms to empower users to flag inappropriate behavior or mute obnoxious players, a function that exists in VRChat.

Earning a reputation for malfeasance and poor user experience is bad business for VRChat, so the company recently re-envisioned their governance approach. They acknowledge their task in an open letter to their users: “One of the biggest challenges with rapid growth is trying to maintain and shape a community that is fun and safe for everyone. We’re aware there’s a percentage of users that choose to engage in disrespectful or harmful behavior…we’re working on new systems to allow the community to better self-moderate and for our moderation team to be more effective.” The memo detailed where users could provide feedback and ideas to improve VRChat, suggesting that users can be actively involved in the rule-making process.

In Elinor Ostrom’s nobel-prize lecture she criticizes the oft-made assumption that enlightened policymakers or external designers should be the ones “to impose an optimal set of  rules on individuals involved.” Instead, she argued that the self-reflection and creativity of those users within a game could serve “to restructure their own patterns of interaction.” The resulting social norms are a form of governance at the most local level.

Ostrom’s framework demonstrates that good social outcomes emerge through our collective actions, which are influenced by top-down formal rules from platforms and bottom-up norms from users. The goal of stakeholders involved in social VR should be to foster the development of codes of conduct that bring out the best in humanity. Governance in virtual worlds is a process, and players in social spaces have a large role to play. Are you ready for that responsibility, player one?

]]> https://techliberation.com/2018/03/05/governing-virtual-reality-social-spaces/feed/ 4 76241 The Social Science Debate over Violent Video Games Will Never End https://techliberation.com/2011/07/07/the-social-science-debate-over-violent-video-games-will-never-end/ https://techliberation.com/2011/07/07/the-social-science-debate-over-violent-video-games-will-never-end/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:49:53 +0000 http://techliberation.com/?p=37701

NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam had a great spot on NPR’s Morning Edition today about the disputes among social scientists over the impact of violent video games on kids. [“It’s A Duel: How Do Violent Video Games Affect Kids?”] You won’t be surprised to hear I wholeheartedly agree with Texas A&M psychologist Chris Ferguson, who noted in the spot:

Ferguson says it’s easy to think senseless video game violence can lead to senseless violence in the real world. But he says that’s mixing up two separate things.  “Many of the games do have morally objectionable material and I think that is where a lot of the debate on this issue went off the rails,” he said. “We kind of mistook our moral concerns about some of these video games, which are very valid — I find many of the games to be morally objectionable — and then assumed that what is morally objectionable is harmful.”

I’ve written about Ferguson’s work and these issues more generally many times over through the years here at the TLF. Here are some of the most relevant essays:

In these essays, I’ve tried to make a couple of key points about the social science literature on “media effects” theory:

(1) Lab studies by psychology professors and students are not representative of real-world behavior/results. Indeed, lab experiments are little more than artificial constructions of reality and of only limited value in gauging the impact of violently-themed media on actual human behavior.

(2) Real-world data trends likely offer us a better indication of the impact of media on human behavior over the long-haul. And all those trends show encouraging signs of improvement even as video game consumption among youth and adults increases.

(3) Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Of course, whether we are talking about those artificial lab experiments or the real-world data sets, we must always keep this first principle of statistical analysis in mind.

(4) Finally, it’s worth reconsidering whether more weight should be given to the “cathartic effect hypothesis” in these debates. 

A bit more on this final point since I feel quite passionately about it…

The battle over media effect theory goes all the way back to the great Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. While Plato thought the media of his day (poetry, plays & music) had a deleterious impact on culture and humanity, Aristotle took a very different view. Indeed, most historians believe it was Aristotle who first used the term katharsis when discussing the importance of Greek tragedies, which often contained violent overtones and action. He suggested that these tragedies helped the audience, “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” In Part IV of his Poetics, Aristotle spoke highly of tragedies that used provocative or titillating storytelling to its fullest effect:

Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design. We may instance the statue of Mitys at Argos, which fell upon his murderer while he was a spectator at a festival, and killed him. Such events seem not to be due to mere chance. Plots, therefore, constructed on these principles are necessarily the best.

And for me, that remains the best explanation for how humans process dramatic depictions of violence and tragedy. We humans are unique among all mammals in our ability to adapt to changes in our environment and to process new and different forms of content and culture. We process. We learn. We assimilate. We adapt. Thus, we can enjoy the “tragic wonder” of watching a violent Greek drama or playing a violent video game without running for the kitchen to find a knife to plunge into somebody’s back. We can separate fantasy from reality and we do so every day of our lives.

Yet, many social scientists today, echoing Plato, continue to search for proof that the alternative is true and that depictions of violence on the stage or screen will have a direct and quite deleterious impact on human behavior. They subscribe to the “monkey see-monkey do” theory of media effects. Again, I think that’s utterly bogus and flatly contradicted by real-world facts. After all, if there was anything to their theories, shouldn’t it have shown up sometime, somewhere in real-world data trends by now?

Still, don’t expect this debate to ever end.  Just wait till virtual reality technologies go mainstream!  Oh boy, now that will have the “monkey see-monkey do” crowd whipped into a lather.  I look forward to the debate (and to playing those VR games with my kids!)

 

]]> https://techliberation.com/2011/07/07/the-social-science-debate-over-violent-video-games-will-never-end/feed/ 3 37701 The Case for Internet Optimism, Part 1: Saving the Net From Its Detractors https://techliberation.com/2011/01/31/the-case-for-internet-optimism-part-1-saving-the-net-from-its-detractors/ https://techliberation.com/2011/01/31/the-case-for-internet-optimism-part-1-saving-the-net-from-its-detractors/#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:43:30 +0000 http://techliberation.com/?p=34765

Here’s the first of two essays I’ve recently penned making “The Case for Internet Optimism.” This essay was included in the book, The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet (2011), which was edited by Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus of TechFreedom.  In these essays, I identify two schools of Internet pessimism: (1) “Net Skeptics,” who are pessimistic about the Internet improving the lot of mankind; and (2) “Net Lovers,” who appreciate the benefits the Net brings society but who fear those benefits are disappearing, or that the Net or openness are dying.  (Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with these themes since I sketched them out in previous essays here such as, “Are You an Internet Optimist or Pessimist?” and “Two Schools of Internet Pessimism.”) The second essay is here.

This essay focuses on the first variant of Internet pessimism, which is rooted in general skepticism about the supposed benefits of cyberspace, digital technologies, and information abundance. The proponents of this pessimistic view often wax nostalgic about some supposed “good ‘ol days” when life was much better (although they can’t seem to agree when those were). At a minimum, they want us to slow down and think twice about life in the Information Age and how it’s personally affecting each of us.  Occasionally, however, this pessimism borders on neo-Ludditism, with some proponents recommending steps to curtail what they feel is the destructive impact of the Net or digital technologies on culture or the economy.  I identify the leading exponents of this view of Internet pessimism and their major works. I trace their technological pessimism back to Plato but argue that their pessimism is largely unwarranted. Humans are more resilient than pessimists care to admit and we learn how to adapt to technological change and assimilate new tools into our lives over time. Moreover, were we really better off in the scarcity era when we were collectively suffering from information poverty?  Generally speaking, despite the challenges it presents society, information abundance is a better dilemma to be facing than information poverty.  Nonetheless, I argue, we should not underestimate or belittle the disruptive impacts associated with the Information Revolution.  But we need to find ways to better cope with turbulent change in a dynamist fashion instead of attempting to roll back the clock on progress or recapture “the good ‘ol days,” which actually weren’t all that good.

Down below, I have embedded the entire chapter in a Scribd reader, but the essay can also be found on the TechFreedom website for the book as well as on SSRN.  I have also includes two updated tables that appeared in my old “optimists vs. pessimists” essay.  The first lists some of the leading Internet optimists and pessimists and their books. The second table outlines some of the major lines of disagreement between these two camps and I divided those disagreements into (1) Cultural / Social beliefs vs. (2) Economic / Business beliefs.

The Case for Internet Optimism Part 1 – Saving the Net From Its Detractors (Adam Thierer) http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

______

Theuthian Technophiles ( “The Internet Optimists”)

Thamusian Technophobes ( “The Internet Pessimists”)

Optimists

Pessimists

Cultural / Social beliefs
Net is participatory Net is polarizing
Net facilitates personalization (welcome of “Daily Me” that digital tech allows) Net facilitates fragmentation (fear of the “Daily Me”)
“a global village” balkanization and fears of “mob rule”
heterogeneity / encourages diversity of thought and expression homogeneity / Net leads to close-mindedness
allows self-actualization diminishes personhood
Net a tool of liberation & empowerment Net a tool of frequent misuse & abuse
Net can help educate the masses dumbs down the masses
anonymous communication encourages vibrant debate + whistleblowing (a net good) anonymity debases culture & leads to lack of accountability
welcome information abundance; believe it will create new opportunities for learning concern about information overload; esp. impact on learning & reading
Economic / Business beliefs
benefits of “Free” (increasing importance of “gift economy”) costs of “Free” (“free” = threat to quality & business models)
mass collaboration is generally more important individual effort is generally more important
embrace of “amateur” creativity superiority of “professionalism”
stress importance of “open systems” of production stress importance of “proprietary” models of production
“wiki” model = wisdom of crowds; benefits of crowdsourcing “wiki” model = stupidity of crowds; collective intelligence is oxymoron; + “sharecropper” concern about exploitation of free labor

Theuthian Technophiles ( “The Internet Optimists”)

Thamusian Technophobes ( “The Internet Pessimists”)

· Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (1995)

· Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (1995)

· Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies (1998)

· James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds (2004)

· Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (2006)

· Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good For You (2006)

· Glenn Reynolds, An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths (2006)

· Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (2006)

· Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (2008)

· Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (2008)

· Jeff Howe, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (2008)

· Tyler Cowen, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World (2009)

· Dennis Baron, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution (2009)

· Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do ? (2009)

· Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010)

· Nick Bilton, I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works (2010)

· Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants (2010)

· Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)

· Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (1994)

· Clifford Stoll, High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian (1999)

· Cass Sunstein, Republic.com (2001)

· Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torment of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (2002)

· Todd Oppenheimer, The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology (2003)

· Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture (2007)

· Steve Talbott, Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines‎ (2007)

· Nick Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008)

· Lee Siegel, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob (2008)

· Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (2008)

· Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto (2009)

· Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (2009)

· John Freeman, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox (2009)

· Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget (2010)

· Nick Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010)

· William Powers, Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (2010)
]]> https://techliberation.com/2011/01/31/the-case-for-internet-optimism-part-1-saving-the-net-from-its-detractors/feed/ 10 34765 Thoughts on Wu’s Master Switch, Part 6 (His Audacious Information Industrial Policy) https://techliberation.com/2010/11/02/thoughts-on-wu%e2%80%99s-master-switch-part-6-his-audacious-information-industrial-policy/ https://techliberation.com/2010/11/02/thoughts-on-wu%e2%80%99s-master-switch-part-6-his-audacious-information-industrial-policy/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:44:56 +0000 http://techliberation.com/?p=32764

I’m going to close out my series of essays about Tim Wu’s new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, by discussing his proposed solutions.  In the first five essays in the series, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] I’ve critiqued Wu’s look at information history as well as his use of terms like “market failure,” “laissez-faire” and “open” vs. “closed.”  I argued there’s a great deal of over-simplification, even outright distortion, in his use of those terms throughout the book.

Anyway, let’s run through the basics of the book once more before getting to Wu’s proposed solutions.  By my reading of The Master Switch, Wu’s argument essentially goes something like this:

  • Information industries go through cycles. After a period of “openness” and competition, they tend to drift toward “closed,” corporate-controlled, anti-consumer models and outcomes.
  • The resulting “monopolists” then block much innovation, competition, and free speech.
  • Consequently, “the purely economic laissez-faire approach… is no longer feasible.”
  • Moreover, information industries are more important than all others (“information industries… can never be properly understood as ‘normal’ industries”) and even traditional forms of regulation, including antitrust, “are clearly inadequate for the regulation of information industries.” (p. 303).
  • Thus, special rules should apply to information-related sectors of our economy.

Again, I’ve challenged some of these assertions in my previous essays, specifically, Wu’s incomplete history of cycles and the fact that he greatly underplays the role of governments in “locking-in” sub-optimal market structures or, worse yet, creating those structures through misguided public policies or regulatory capture.  Wu discusses some of those factors in his book, but he tends to regard them as secondary to the inquiry, whereas I believe they are crucial to understanding how most “closed” or anti-competitive scenarios develop or endure. Instead, Wu simplistically suggests that “the purely economic laissez-faire approach… is no longer feasible,” even though no such state of affairs has ever existed within communications or media industries. They have been subjected to varying levels of indirect influence or direct control almost since their inception.

Regardless, what does Tim Wu want done about the problems he has (mis-)diagnosed?

What Wu Wants: A “Constitutional” Approach to Private Regulation

Broadly speaking, Wu wants to counter what he regards as “the danger of private power,” “the Lockean sanctification of private property,” and the fact that “American economic life [has] been built mostly on freewheeling capitalism.” (p. 300)  More specifically, he wants to end the “cycle” he describes of markets moving from supposedly open to closed.

To do so, he proposes what he calls a “constitutional” approach to private marketplace regulation.  In reality, it would be a massive, unprecedented, and highly destructive information sector industrial policy that would substitute the Rule of Man for the Rule of Law.  But let’s hear how Wu describes it:

What I propose is not a regulatory approach but rather a constitutional approach to the information economy. By that I mean a regime whose goal is to constrain and divide all power that derives from the control of information. Specifically, what we need is something I would call a Separations Principle for the information economy. A Separations Principle would mean the creation of a salutary distance between each of the major functions or layers in the information economy. It would mean that those who develop information, those who control the network infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the tools or venues of access must be kept apart from one another. At the same time, Separations Principle stipulates one other necessity: that the government also keep its distance and not intervene in the market to favor any technology, network monopoly, or integration of the major functions of an information industry.”  (p. 302, emphasis in original)

Wu calls this a “constitutional approach” because he models it on the separations of power found in the U.S. Constitution, such as the separation of church and State, as well as the separation of powers between branches of government.  Wu makes a few additional assertions:

  • “[T]he Separations Principle accepts in advance that some of the benefits of concentration and unified action will be sacrificed, even in ways that may seem painful or costly.” (p. 305)
  • But Wu believes that pain or cost is worth it because of the “corrupting effect of vertically integrated power.” (p. 305)
  • “You cannot serve two masters, and the objectives of creating information are often at odds with those of disseminating it,” he says. (p. 305)
  • Specifically, he claims the Separations Principle would better protect free speech and entrepreneurial freedom. On the former: “It is a recognition that the disposition of firms and industries is, if anything, more critical than the actions of the state in controlling who gets heard.” On the latter: “The Separations Principle protects entrepreneurial freedom by preventing stagnation and repression of business innovation, especially with the help of the state.” (p. 306)

There’s a lot to unpack here including Wu’s stunning claim that his Separations Principle doesn’t represent a regulatory regime, as well as his rather incredible belief that government meddling and machinations could be kept in check under this regime.

First, however, Wu deserves credit for coming clean about just how radical his proposal is.

Constitutional Limits on Governments vs. Private Actors

Wu admits that “It would be quite radical today even to contemplate imposing on the economy the kind of safeguards that the Constitution places on the political system.” (p. 301)  A few pages later he notes that “The Separations Principle… requires a certain breadth and ambition in its application.” (p. 308)

I’m glad Wu was willing to at least acknowledge the radicalness of his proposal.  But, as he is prone to do throughout the book, he raises an important potential objection only to quickly walk away from it.  In this case, however, it’s completely understandable why Wu wouldn’t want to continue this inquiry: His proposal really is “quite radical” since it is completely at odds with America’s constitutional heritage of individual liberty and limited government.

Let’s go back to Civics 101.  We require that governments live under certain constraints and the Rule of Law because we recognize that governments possess the unique ability to fine, punish, and imprison citizens.  Moreover, escape from government’s tentacles is difficult, if not impossible. A constitutional system is required, therefore, to limit government’s role over our lives and the economy.

By contrast, we do not impose similar constraints on individuals — or on individuals when they work collaboratively in organizations or corporations — primarily because we believe there should be a presumption of liberty in most human affairs.  Freedom is the default position.  We value freedom because it allows humans to exercise their free will and live a life of their own choosing — and that includes the freedom to pursue happiness by making money in a business venture.  Our nation’s founders saw the wisdom in this even before we had a grand historical clash between communism and capitalist systems.  From that experience, however, we now have undisputed proof that social and economic freedoms are closely linked, and that when humans are free, they prosper.  The other reason we default to freedom for private individuals and organizations is because the possibility of “escape” exists from undesirable social or economic situations.

Wu doesn’t bother slowing down to appreciate these distinctions. He gives occasional lip service to the dangers of excessive government power:

Again and again in the histories I have recounted, the state has shown itself an inferior arbiter of what is good for the information industries. The federal government’s role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace…. Government’s tendency to protect large market players amounts to an illegitimate complicity … [particularly its] sense of obligation to protect big industries irrespective of their having become uncompetitive. (p. 308)

Quite right. Yet, as I pointed out in this earlier essay, there’s seemingly never any serious lesson to be drawn from that conclusion.  Wu just marches right along in his narrative and ignores that “disgrace” and its relationship to “the cycle.”

The crucial point here is that Wu doesn’t fully appreciate the qualitative difference between State power and corporate power.  Instead — consistent with many “media access” theorists who came before him — he largely equates those forms of power or even makes private power out to be the more significant threat to personal liberties and freedom of speech.  Again, we hear statements like “the disposition of firms and industries is, if anything, more critical than the actions of the state in controlling who gets heard.”

The problem with this is that (a) history shows it’s simply not true and (b) the corrective remedies such a theory counsels would require a massive enhancement of State power to counter the supposed threats of private power, which (c) would create an even bigger threat to human liberty since only the State can fine, imprison, and truly foreclose speech.

So, I’ll stick with traditional “constitutionalism,” thank you very much!  Tim Wu’s “constitutionalism,” by contrast, is the Rule of Man, not the Rule of Law.  Specifically, it would be the rule of a handful of unelected men (and women) down at the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, or whatever other regulatory bureaucracies Wu would empower under this approach.   And, as we’ll see next, that approach is truly audacious in its scope.

Practical Considerations: An Unprecedented Information Control Regime

OK, let’s forget about all that philosophical and legalistic mumbo-jumbo.  After all, most people these days don’t really give a hoot about constitutional limitations or the first principles associated with our nation’s founding. Let us instead explore the Bold New World of information regulation that Wu wants imposed on the high-tech economy and consider its complexity and costs.  Wu is a bit short on details about how policymakers should go about constructing a “Separations” regime, or how it will work in practice, but he does suggest that Net neutrality regulation and expanded antitrust oversight are at least two of the core elements. But he says that will not be enough.

Despite the fact that Wu admits the FCC “has on occasion let itself become the enemy of the good, effectively a tool of repression,” Wu seems to suggest the agency will continue to have “day-to-day authority over the information industries.” (p. 309) Of course, the FCC’s role is currently limited mostly to older sectors of the information economy, but Wu seems to suggest that role should be expanded considerably.  Yet, FCC oversight isn’t enough either, Wu says.  He argues that “what is needed is not only an FCC institutionally committed to a Separations Principle but also a structural arrangement to guard against such deviations, including congressional oversight as well as attention and corrections from other branches of government.”

Here the “breadth and ambition in its application” associated with Wu’s Separations Principal becomes more apparent. We are talking about layers upon layers of regulation. More importantly, the key attribute of Wu’s Separations Principle is that it is preemptive and prophylactic in character.  He explicitly rejects the idea that marketplace experimentation should be allowed and that ex post administrative proceedings or antitrust enforcement will be good enough. “[T]here is the problem of taking an after-the-fact approach to a commodity so vital to our basic liberties,” he argues. (p. 204) Thus, Wu’s approach represent a return to the sort of anticipatory, “Mother, May I” regulatory regime America was supposed to be turning away from following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

What’s most bizarre about Wu’s call for such a preemptive “Separations” approach is his insistence that it is not a regulatory approach.  It’s hard to know whether this is an astonishing bit of hubris or just plain naiveté.  I hate to suggest it, but I think Wu is perfectly aware of just how regulatory his system would be in practice; he just doesn’t want to admit it.  After all, for there to be “separations” of various segments of the information sector, someone would need to determine who and what belongs in which bucket.  Wu suggests we’ll need at least three buckets. To repeat, he says his Separations Principle “would mean that those who develop information, those who control the network infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the tools or venues of access must be kept apart from one another.”  Let’s put some labels on these buckets:

  • Bucket #1: Information Creators
  • Bucket #2: Information Distributors
  • Bucket #3: Information Hardware Makers

These would essentially become three of the new “titles” (or regulatory sections) of a forthcoming “Information Economy Separations Act.” (I’m assuming Wu understands it would take an act of Congress to implement this sweeping regime, although he never makes that clear.  Or perhaps he would just prefer the FCC “reclassify” the entire information economy by regulatory fiat? Who knows.  Again, he never really sweats the details on this important point.)

Regardless, the problem with these conceptually neat classifications is that don’t conform to our fast-paced, highly dynamic Information Age economy.  There is a fluidity of innovation and market activity that Wu utterly fails to appreciate.  I suppose it’d be easy to throw a couple of players into these buckets and tell them to stay put.  We could tell T-Mobile, for example, that they could be a wireless information distributor and absolutely nothing else; we could tell Discovery Networks, they could be a content creator and absolutely nothing else; and we could tell Intel, you can be a chip maker and absolutely nothing else.

But not every existing information sector actor or technology is so neatly compartmentalized. Moreover, Wu’s framework also begs the question: Would firms that currently have integrated operations and investments in multiple fields be forced to divest control of various operations to come in line with Wu’s Separations Principle?   Here are a few scenarios to consider (and with each example, ask yourself the question: What’s the harm here to would justify the sort of “separations” regime Wu proposes?):

  • Cox Enterprises has a wide variety of content and distribution properties including: broadband services, cable TV channels and distribution systems, newspapers, radio stations, advertising and direct mail divisions, and AutoTrader.com.  How many pieces does the firm need to be split into to comply with Wu’s new “Separations” regime?
  • Should an ISP be allowed to develop or offer (or directly integrate into their service) free anti-virus software and parental control technologies since that’s not part of the underlying distribution service? Nearly every major ISP does so already today.
  • Even though the experiment was ultimately a failure, should Google have been allowed to break out of the search market and give the handheld device business a shot with the Nexus One?  Likewise, should Google be allowed to continue its experiment with local fiber or wi-fi networks even though it is so clearly outside their traditional line of business?  Finally, should the FCC have disallowed Google’s bid in the 700 MHz spectrum auction back in 2008 since it would have meant the firm was formally entering the information distribution business?
  • Which bucket is Microsoft in as a traditional OS and software provider?  Regardless, was it a mistake to allow them to jump into the video game console marketplace with the Xbox many years ago?   Should MS have been forbidden from creating the Zune since it too was a digital device outside of Microsoft’s core field?  Should MS be allowed to have a content division that develops games or other content for its operating systems even though they might be considered two separate information markets?
  • Sony produces movie and video game content but also develops hardware (video game consoles, televisions, music players, phones, etc.) on which that content can be played. Should that be illegal? Would they have to divest some of these divisions once Wu’s system went into effect?
  • Apple is the ultimate example of an information hardware manufacturer that has not only diversified its hardware offerings from PCs to iPods, iPhones and iPads, but also become a (if not the) leading information distributor for digital music, movies, television shows, podcasts, books and audiobooks through iTunes.  The company’s Apps store also makes it a key distributor of software.  What bucket is it in?
  • Should Amazon be allowed to be both the biggest online marketplace as well as the manufacturer of a device (the Kindle) that offers access to that store?

I could go on and on, but here’s the crucial point: Creating firewalls between the buckets Wu proposes would be a nightmare and would entail incessant regulatory interventions to make sure the walls weren’t breached.  As suggested above, the very act of regulatory line-drawing would be mind-bogglingly complex.  More importantly, each new information sector innovation would suddenly be subjected to a regulatory classification proceeding.

Wu is essentially saying there are few integrative efficiencies or other economic benefits associated with cross-sector deals or cross-platform technological developments.  Again, he dismisses the notion with one line: “[T]he Separations Principle accepts in advance that some of the benefits of concentration and unified action will be sacrificed, even in ways that may seem painful or costly.” (p. 305)  Well, that’s nice… except that this regulatory system would upend the U.S. information economy as we know it!  His Separations Principle is an unprecedented regulatory wrecking ball that would do untold destruction to the American economy in the name of creating a system of information apartheid. Wu also completely ignores the litigation nightmare that would ensue once the government started forcing the divestiture of various lines of business.  After all, many companies would likely have valid “takings” claims here under the Fifth Amendment.

But even if we could get beyond all that, we’d have to consider how this regime would work going forward.  Let’s consider a hypothetical example.  Virtual reality is an emerging field of our information economy that promises to experience rapid growth in coming years.  A number of companies are currently developing content and devices that will help bring a veritable Star Trek holodeck experience to our living rooms sometime very soon.  The market is still in a great deal of flux and it remains unclear which technologies will prevail or which developers and device makers will prosper.  One thing we know for certain, however: it’s a hugely complex and expensive undertaking.  VR technologies aren’t like creating a YouTube video of your cat playing a piano. There are significant costs associated with developing VR content and devices. Distributing VR bits over networks will, no doubt, be quite complicated as well.  Now, imagine two scenarios (which, for all I know, may already be playing out in the marketplace today):

  • Scenario 1: A partnership is announced between some cutting-edge VR companies that have different core competencies in this field.  One of the companies is developing holographic imaging devices to project immersive environments directly into your living room or workspace.  Another of the partners is developing games that would take advantage of those new holographic imaging innovations.  And a third partner in the deal is developing software that will help manage the real-time, high-bandwidth flow of VR bits across broadband lines.  Under Wu’s Separations Principle, would this deal be illegal?
  • Scenario 2: All of the activities discussed above are being handled by a single, integrated firm.  Is that illegal under Wu’s Separations Principle?

Now, it would be easy to dismiss this scenario with a casual wave of the hand and a ‘we’ll-figure-it-out-later’ attitude.  But consider the fact that deals and developments like this are happening every single minute of the day our modern information economy.  One wonders how regulators would even be expected to keep track of it all.  And they would have to keep track of it all because, again, Wu’s Separations Principle is preemptive and prophylactic in character.  His regulatory regime is going to have to come to grips with that fact that innovation happens. Markets evolve. People want to experiment and do bold new things. They tinker. They develop. They pitch. They deal. And so on.  As that dynamic process unfolds every day across the high-tech economy, Wu’s Separations Principle will be put to the test and necessitate a regulatory proceeding of some sort to determine what is permitted and what is verboten.  Meanwhile, the very uncertainty associated with Wu’s regime would delay and discourage investment in the field and formation of the partnership/venture necessary to successfully bring VR to market

Astonishingly, however, Wu argues that “a Separations regime would take much of the guesswork and impressionism, and indeed the influence trafficking, out of the oversight of information industries.” (p. 307) That’s a doozy of a claim.  To the extent his Separations Principle eliminates “guesswork” and creates more regulatory certainty, it would only do so by creating rigid artificial barriers to market entry and innovation across the information economy.  That’s “certainty” that we can live without.

Conclusion

Over on Amazon.com, I was interested to see Tim Wu post a glowing review of Kevin Kelly’s important new book, What Technology Wants (which I will be reviewing here next).  Kelly’s book argues that we should think of technology, or what he calls “the Technium,” as a “force” or even a living “organism” that has a “vital spirit” and which “has its own wants” and “a noticeable measure of autonomy.”  I think Kelly goes a bit far, but to the extent one buys into the notion that technology is like an organism, Tim Wu’s Information Industrial Policy would kill that organism.  Or, it would at least severely stunt its continued growth and evolution.

Because his information industry policy is every bit as “radical” as he suggests and would require, as he also admits, “a certain breadth and ambition in its application,” it is essential we reject this innovation-killing regulatory regime.  The health of the high-tech economy, the global competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector, and the long-term welfare of consumers depends upon it.

]]> https://techliberation.com/2010/11/02/thoughts-on-wu%e2%80%99s-master-switch-part-6-his-audacious-information-industrial-policy/feed/ 602 32764 Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society https://techliberation.com/2010/01/31/are-you-an-internet-optimist-or-pessimist-the-great-debate-over-technology%e2%80%99s-impact-on-society/ https://techliberation.com/2010/01/31/are-you-an-internet-optimist-or-pessimist-the-great-debate-over-technology%e2%80%99s-impact-on-society/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:47:50 +0000 http://techliberation.com/?p=25554

[I’ve been working on an outline for a book I hope to write surveying technological skepticism throughout history. I first started thinking about this topic two years when I noticed that a great number of recent books about Internet policy could generally be grouped into one of two camps: Internet optimists vs. Internet pessimists. I subsequently penned an essay on the subject that generated a fair bit of attention. So, I figured I must be on to something, and the more Net policy books I read, the more I realized that the divisions between these two camps were growing wider and increasingly heated. Thus, I thought I would share this very rough draft (much of it still in outline form) of the opening chapter of that book I want to write about this great intellectual war over the impact of technology on society. I invite reader input. Update Jan. 2011: I finally published a full-length essay on this topic. You can find it here. ]

__________

The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene.

The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These “techno-pessimists” predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation’s hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped).  Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred.

The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order.  If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such “techno-optimists,” progress means some norms and institutions must adapt—perhaps even disappear—for society to continue its march forward.

Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it—or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy.

Web 1.0 Fight: Postman vs. Negroponte

In his 1992 anti-technology screed Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, the late social critic Neil Postman greeted the unfolding Information Age with a combination of skepticism and scorn.  Indeed, Postman’s book was a near-perfect articulation of the techo-pessimist’s creed.  “Information has become a form of garbage,” he claimed, “not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems.”  If left unchecked, Postman argued, America’s new technopoly—“the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology”—would destroy “the vital sources of our humanity” and lead to “a culture without a moral foundation” by undermining “certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living.”

Postman opened his polemic with the well-known allegorical tale from Plato’s Phaedrus about the dangers of the written word.  Postman reminded us how King Thamus responded to the god Theuth, who boasted of how his invention of writing would improve the wisdom and memory of the masses relative to the oral tradition of learning.  King Thamus shot back, “the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it.”  King Thamus then passed judgment himself about the impact of writing on society, saying he feared that the people “will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”

And so Postman—fancying himself a bit of a modern King Thamus—cast judgment on today’s comparable technological advances and those who would glorify them:

we are currently surrounded by throngs of zealous Theuths, one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo. We might call such people Technophiles. They gaze on technology as a lover does on his beloved, seeing it as without blemish and entertaining no apprehension for the future. They are therefore dangerous and to be approached cautiously. … If one is to err, it is better to err on the side of Thamusian skepticism.

Nicholas Negroponte begged to differ. An unapologetic Theuthian technophile, the former director of the MIT Media Lab responded on behalf of the techno-optimists in 1995 with his prescient polemic, Being Digital.  It was a paean to the Information Age, for which he served as one of the first high prophets—with Wired magazine’s back page frequently serving as his pulpit during the many years he served as a regular columnist.

Appropriately enough, the epilogue of Negroponte’s Being Digital was entitled “An Age of Optimism” and, like the rest of the book, it stood in stark contrast to Postman’s pessimistic worldview.  Although Negroponte conceded that technology indeed had a “dark side” in that it could destroy much of the old older, he believed that was inevitable, but also not cause for much concern. “Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped,” he insisted, and we must learn to appreciate the ways “digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into greater world harmony.” (This sort of techno-determism is a theme we would see on display in many of the works by other Internet optimists that followed in Negroponte’s footsteps.)

To Postman’s persistent claim that America’s technopoly lacked a moral compass, Negroponte again conceded the point but took the glass-is-half-full view: “Computers are not moral; they cannot resolve complex issues like the rights to life and to death. But being digital, nevertheless, does give much cause for optimism.”  His defense of the digital age rested on the “four very powerful qualities that will result in its ultimate triumph: decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering.” Gazing into his techno-crystal ball in 1995, Negroponte forecast the ways in which those qualities would revolutionize society:

The access, the mobility, and the ability to effect change are what will make the future so different from the present. The information superhighway may be mostly hype today, but it is an understatement about tomorrow. It will exist beyond people’s wildest predictions. As children appropriate a global information resource, and as they discover that only adults need learner’s permits, we are bound to find new hope and dignity in places where very little existed before.

In many ways, that’s the world we occupy today; a world of unprecedented media abundance and unlimited communications and connectivity opportunities.

But the great debate about the impact of digitization and information abundance would not end with Postman and Negroponte. Theirs would only be Act I in a drama that continues to unfold, and it is growing more heated and complex with each new character that comes on the stage.

Web War II

 

The disciples of Postman and Negroponte are a colorful, diverse lot. The players in Act II of this drama occupy many diverse professions—journalists, technologists, business consultants, sociologists, economists, lawyers, etc.—and they are disagreeing even more vehemently and vociferously about the impact of the Internet and digital technologies than Postman and Negroponte did.

In Exhibit 1, I have listed the Internet optimists and pessimists and list their key works.

Theuthian Technophiles (aka “The Internet Optimists”) Thamusian Technophobes (aka “The Internet Pessimists”)
Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies

 Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture
James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds Lee Siegel, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations and Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age Nick Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google and The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Cass Sunstein, Republic.com
Kevin Kelly,Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torment of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives
Jeff Howe, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)
Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything Steve Talbott, Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines‎
Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do John Freeman, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox
Tyler Cowen, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget
Dennis Baron, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution David Trend, The End of Reading: From Gutenberg to Grand Theft Auto

In Exhibit 2, I have sketched out the major lines of disagreement between these two camps and divided those disagreements into (1) Cultural / Social beliefs vs. (2) Economic / Business beliefs.

Optimists Pessimists

Cultural / Social beliefs
Net is participatory Net is polarizing
Net facilitates personalization (welcome of “Daily Me” that digital tech allows) Net facilitates fragmentation (fear of the “Daily Me”)
“a global village” balkanization and fears of “mob rule”
heterogeneity / encourages diversity of thought and expression homogeneity / Net leads to close-mindedness
allows self-actualization diminishes personhood
Net a tool of liberation & empowerment Net a tool of frequent misuse & abuse
believe Net can help educate fear dumbing-down of masses
anonymous communication is a net good; encourages vibrant debate + whistleblowing fear of anonymity; say it debases culture & leads to lack of accountability
welcome information abundance; believe it will create new opportunities for learning concern about information overload; esp. impact on learning & reading
Economic / Business beliefs
benefits of “Free” (increasing importance of “gift economy”) costs of “Free” (“free” = threat to quality & business models)
mass collaboration is generally more important individual effort is generally more important
embrace of “amateur” creativity superiority of “professionalism”
superiority of “open systems” of production superiority of “proprietary” models of production
“wiki” model = wisdom of crowds; benefits of crowdsourcing “wiki” model = stupidity of crowds; collective intelligence is oxymoron; + “Sharecropper” concern @ exploiting free labor

When you boil it all down, there are two major points of contention between the optimists and pessimists:

  1. The impact of technology on learning & culture & the role of experts vs. amateurs in that process.
  2. The promise—or perils—of personalization.

The Debate over Learning & Culture

  • Internet optimists and pessimists have engaged in heated debates over role of amateur production and benefits of abundant media
  • pessimists fear impact of Net and “cult of amateur” on “professional” media
  • without “enforceable scarcity” and protection for the “enlightened class,” the pessimists wonder how “high quality” news or “high art” will get funded and disseminated; and they worry about the decline of authority & truth
  • optimists argue that new modes of production (namely peer-production) will be an adequate (if not superior) alternative
    • or they believe new business models will evolve to support professional media
  • but pessimists argue that all the new choices are largely false choices
    • participatory democracy all bunk (“mob rule” and rumor mill mongering)
    • just more force-fed commercial propaganda; concerns about advertising
    • also worry about “digital sharecropping” where small group of elites make money off backs of free labor
  • optimists counter that Web 2.0 offers real choices and voices
    • optimists argue that many (perhaps most) aren’t in it for the money
    • they do it for love of knowledge & “free culture”
  • pessimists argue that “free” culture isn’t free at all; often just parasitic copying / piracy
    • could have profound ramifications for future of news, journalism, “high culture”
    • fear loss of trusted intermediaries & authorities
    • could “dumb down” the masses
  • the centrality of Wikipedia to the discussion serves as a microcosm of the entire debate
    • does Wikipedia mark the decline of authority?
    • what is “truth,” the pessimists ask? [“truthiness” fear, a la S. Colbert & Manjoo]
    • who and what can be trusted if everyone is considered an authority?
    • on the other hand, what if it works (at least reasonably well)?
    • what does that tell us about peer production / crowdsourcing?

The Debate over the Promise or Perils of Personalization

  • both optimists and pessimists agree that Net & Web 2.0 is leading to more “personalized” media experience
    • but they vehemently disagree on whether that is good or bad
    • what will it mean for participatory democracy?
  • pessimists fear Negroponte’s “Daily Me” (i.e., hyper-personalization) leads to:
    • homogenization
    • close-mindedness
    • an online echo-chamber
    • overload of choices + just more corporate brainwashing
  • optimists counter that personalization leads to:
    • heterogeneity / chance for everyone to be heard
    • openness
    • exposure to new thinking and opinions
    • abundance of choices = diversity of thought / participation
  • in the extreme, some pessimists fear the “mechanization of the soul” and the “surrender to the machine”
  • while that may sound a bit over the top, it doesn’t help that some optimists speak of the noosphere & “global consciousness” and seem to long for the eventual singularity

Who’s Got It Right?

  • On balance, I believe the optimists generally have the better of the argument today
  • But pessimists make many fair points that deserve to be taken seriously; they just need a more reasonable articulation of (some of) those concerns
  • The better approach is what I call “pragmatic optimism,” which attempts to rid the optimist paradigm of its kookier, pollyannish thinking while also taking into account some of the very legitimate concerns raised by the pessimists, but rejecting its Luddite fringe in the process.

Thoughts on the Pessimists…

  • First and foremost, the pessimists need better spokespersons! Or, they at least need a more moderated, less hysterical tone when addressing concerns raised by technological progress (many of which are quite legitimate).
  • It’s often difficult to take the pessimists seriously when they persist with their seeming outright hostility to most forms of technological progress / change. Every one of them claim they are not a Luddite, and often I believe them. But the tone of some of their writing, and the thrust of some of their recommendations, have clear Luddite tendencies.
  • Moreover, their endless name-calling and derision for the digital generation is, at times, just as insulting and immature as they “mob” they repeatedly castigate in their works. Too often, their criticism devolves into philosophical snobbery and blatant elitism. Constantly looking down their noses at digital natives and all “amateur” production doesn’t help them win any converts.
  • It’s quite shocking how the pessimists have almost nothing good to say about Wikipedia and demonize it endlessly. Much the same goes for open source and other collaborative efforts. They don’t appear willing to accept the possibility of any benefits coming from collective efforts. And they wrongly treat the rise of collective / collaborative efforts as a zero-sum game; they seem to imagine it represents a net loss of individual effort & “personhood.” That simply doesn’t follow.
  • Most importantly, the pessimists need to come to grips with the Information Revolution and offer more constructive and practical solutions to legitimately difficult transitional problems created by disintermediating influences of the digital technologies and Net.
  • The nostalgia the pessimists typically espouse for the past is a common refrain of cultural and technological critics who fear that the “good ‘ol days” are behind us and the current good-for-nothing generation and their new-fangled gadgets are steering us straight into a moral abyss.  The truth typically proves less cataclysmic, of course.  The great thing about humans is that we adapt better than other creatures. When it comes to technological change, resiliency is hard-wired into our genes.  We learn how to use the new tools that are given to us and gradually assimilate them into our lives and culture.  Indeed, we have lived through more radical revolutions than the Information Revolution. We can adapt and learn to live with some of the legitimate difficulties & downsides of the Information Age.
  • The pessimists are at their best when highlighting the very legitimate concerns about the challenges that accompany technological change, including the impact of the digital revolution on “professional” media and the decline of authority among trusted experts and intermediaries.
    • we absolutely don’t want to lose all that
    • there are real benefits associated with it
    • and we need to find a way to fund “professional” media / art going forward
  • But, practically speaking, what would the pessimists have us do if we can’t mitigate these problems? Would they roll back the clock with burdensome restrictions? As Ben Casnocha noted recently: “the wind at the backs of all techno-optimists … [is] the forward momentum of technological development. You cannot turn back the clock. It is impossible to envision a future where there is less information and fewer people on social networks. It is very possible to envision increasing abundance along with better filters to manage it. The most constructive contributions to the debate, then, heed Moore’s Law in the broadest sense and offer specific suggestions for how to harness the change for the better.”  That’s what many pessimists have failed to do in their works.

Thoughts on the Optimists…

  • The optimists currently have the better of the debate as the abundance of Web 2.0 riches is generally benefiting culture / society.
  • Relative to the past it is almost impossible to see how one could argue society has not benefited from the Internet and new digital technologies. The Digital Revolution has greatly empowered masses and offered them more informational inputs.
  • An age of abundance is certainly preferable to an age of information scarcity!
  • But optimists need to be less Pollyanna-ish and avoid becoming the “technopolists”  (or digital utopians) that Postman feared were taking over our society
    • Way too much Rousseauian romanticism at work in some optimist writings. All this talk of the Net “remaking man” or human nature is pure rubbish.
    • Not all change is good change; the optimists need to be mature enough to understand and address the occasional downsides of digital life without dismissing the critics.
    • And they need to acknowledge that sometimes the wisdom of crowds really can = the stupidity of crowds (when does collective intelligence devolve into herd mentality?) And all this crazy talk of “the hive mind” and the “noosphere” must end.  Some of optimists sound like they long for life in The Matrix; bring on the Singularity!  That’s when you know an optimists has crossed over into the realm of quixotic techno-utopianism.
  • Optimists often overplay the benefits of collective intelligence, collaboration, and the role of amateur production.  They need to frame Wiki / peer-production models as a complement to professional media, not a replacement for it.
    • Could The New York Times really be cobbled together by amateurs each day?
    • Why aren’t there any really compelling open source video games?
    • There is a big difference between “remix culture” and “rip-off culture”
    • “The Long Tail” is not “the future of all business”; but it is an increasingly important part of it, and it is wonderful that it is so much more accessible than it was in the past.
    • Will we really be better off if all professionals & intermediaries disappear? Optimists play the “old media just don’t get it” card too often and snobbishly dismiss all their concerns and efforts to reinvent themselves
  • Optimists need to place technological progress in context and appreciate that, as Postman argued, there are some moral dimensions to technological progress that deserve attention.
  • Of course, on the other hand, some of those moral consequences are profoundly positive, which the pessimists usually fail to appreciate or even acknowledge.

Conclusion: Toward “Pragmatic Optimism”

 

  • Generally speaking, I believe the optimists currently have the better of the debate. It is impossible for me to believe that we were better off in an era of information poverty & un-empowered masses.
  • But there’s a kernel of truth to what the pessimists predict about how the passing of the old order leaving society without some things that might be worth preserving.  And they are certainly correct that each of us should think about how to better balance new technologies and assimilate them into our lives.
  • The sensible middle ground position is “pragmatic optimism”: We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today’s Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact and pace of that change. [See my “Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed” below]
  • We need to think about how to mitigate the negative impacts associated with technological change without adopting the paranoid tone or Luddite-ish recommendations of the pessimists.
  • And it is important for us to personally exercise some personal restraint in terms of the role technology plays in our life. While pessimists from Plato and Postman certainly went too far, there is a kernel of truth to their claim that, taken to an extreme, technology can have a negative impact on life and learning.  We need to focus on the Aristotelian mean. We must avoid neo-Luddite calls for a return to “the good ‘ol days” on the one hand, while also rejecting techno-utiopian Pollyanna-ism on the other
  • Regardless, the old Theuth-Thamus debate about the relationship between technological change and its impact on culture and society will continue to rage. There is no chance this debate will die down anytime soon. And just wait till virtual reality goes mainstream!  Oh brother, now that is going to be a lively debate. I might turn into a Thamusian once I find my son playing a virtual gangster or pimp in “Grand Theft Auto 12: The Immersive Experience.”
  • Nonetheless, generally speaking, I remain quite bullish about the prospects for technology to generally improve the human condition.

The Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed

by Adam Thierer

I believe that the Internet and digital technologies are reshaping our culture, economy, and society in most ways for the better, but not without some serious heartburn along the way.

I believe that the world of information abundance that has dawned is vastly superior to the world of information poverty that we just left. But I also understand that not all information is equal and that that the rise of abundance raises concerns about information overload, objectionable content, and the role of “authority” and “truth.”

I believe the era of traditional Mass Media is coming to an end, but “professional” media institutions and creators continue to play a vital role in the creation, aggregation, and dissemination of news, information, culture, and entertainment. The Internet, however, will force gut-wrenching changes on traditional media institutions and some of the more traditionally vital ones (ex: daily local newspapers) will struggle to re-invent themselves, or may wither away entirely. And while I believe that “professional” journalism faces very serious challenges from the rise of the Internet and user-generated content, but I also believe that hybrid forms of news-gathering and reporting are offering society exciting new ways to learn about the world around them.

I believe Wikipedia is an amazing example of collection action / intelligence at work, but I also understand it is not without flaws and limitations. I believe Wikipedia is a wonderful complement, but not a complete substitute, for other media and information sources and inputs.

I believe that free and open source software (FOSS) has produced enormous social / economic benefits, but I do not believe that FOSS (or “wiki” models) will replace all proprietary business models or methods.  Each model or mode of production has its place and purpose and they will continue to co-exist going forward, albeit in serious tension at times.

I believe the Long Tail is a powerful phenomenon, but not “the future of all business.” It is now a more important part of the future of business, but not the entirety of it. But it is wonderful that it is more accessible than ever and that we have found ways to monetize it to benefit less well know creators and innovators.

I believe there is a difference between “remix culture” and “ripoff culture.”  Remix culture generally enhances and extends culture and creativity. Blatant content piracy, on the other hand, can discourage the creative efforts of the citizenry and deprive some of society’s most gifted creators of the incentive to produce culturally beneficial works. Likewise, hacking, circumvention, and reverse-engineering all play an important and legitimate role in our new digital economy, but one need not accept the legitimacy of those activities when conducted for nefarious purposes (think identity theft or chip-modding to facilitate video game piracy.)

I believe that the Internet has empowered the masses and created a world of “pro-sumers” that gives every man, woman, and child a soapbox on which to speak to the world. But that does not mean that all of them will have something interesting to say, and I won’t praise user-generated content as a good in and of itself. It’s quality, not volume, that counts.

I believe that the Internet’s empowering nature has changed much about society and culture, but I do not believe in the romanticism some espouse about how the Net “remaking man” or changing human nature in any fundamental way. The Internet does not liberate us from all earthly constraints and it cannot magically solve all of civilization’s problems.

I believe that the Internet is reinvigorating deliberative democracy and giving us increased exposure to a breathtaking diversity of views previously inaccessible. On the other hand, I understand that some will often seek out only those views that reinforce their pre-existing biases.

I believe in the liberating power of freedom of speech and expression, and appreciate that the Internet and the rise of user-generated content has given us a world of unprecedented information and cultural riches. I also understand, however, that unrestricted freedom of speech and expression permits an increase in the prevalence of objectionable, even loathsome, speech and content. On net, however, (excuse the pun) the Internet is the most important medium of human communication and expression yet.

In sum, there are more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic about the Internet and its role in shaping our lives, culture, economy, and society. But that doesn’t mean it will be all roses going forward.

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Additional Reading (from me):

Additional Reading (from others):

  • and here’s a great video from 1995 featuring the late Neil Postman with his pessimistic take on cyberspace..

Also, courtesy of the Brain Pickings blog, check out this amazing 1972 documentary based on Alvin Toffler’s famous 1970 book, Future Shock. It perfectly foreshadowed so many of today’s technology policy debates.

]]> https://techliberation.com/2010/01/31/are-you-an-internet-optimist-or-pessimist-the-great-debate-over-technology%e2%80%99s-impact-on-society/feed/ 194 25554 presentation at PSU’s conference on future of video games https://techliberation.com/2008/04/04/presentation-at-psus-conference-on-future-of-video-games/ https://techliberation.com/2008/04/04/presentation-at-psus-conference-on-future-of-video-games/#respond Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:29:06 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2008/04/04/presentation-at-psus-conference-on-future-of-video-games/

Today and tomorrow I am attending a terrific conference at Penn State University called, “Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontiers of Videogames.” It features panel discussions about various legal and business issues facing the video game industry, as well as discussions about how video games are used to aid teaching and learning. There are also panels on multiplayer online worlds and virtual reality environments and the issues surrounding both. [They will apparently be posting videos from the conference on their site shortly.] vgslide1 The folks at PSU were kind enough to invite me to deliver the luncheon keynote on Day 1 and I decided to provide a broad overview of the policy issues facing video games that I have covered in some of my past work. My presentation was entitled, “Video Games, Ratings, Parental Controls, & Public Policy: Where Do We Stand?” and the entire 36-slide presentation is now available online here. Down below, I thought I would just outline a couple of the key themes I touched upon in my presentation.

ESRB: Strengths & Challenges

One of the things I did in my presentation was to provide a brief sketch of how the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the game industry’s voluntary rating and labeling system, works. After doing so–again, you can download the entire presentation if you want those details–I outlined the strengths of the ESRB system, which I listed as follows:

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Then I discussed some of the challenges facing the ESRB system…

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General Thoughts on Ratings vs. Government Regulation

Later in the presentation, after walking through how various parental control tools worked, I talked about my general feelings regarding critiques of private rating systems and the ESRB in particular:

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Future Issues & Controversies

I concluded by throwing out a few predictions about future issues and controversies that I think we will be debating in coming months and years.

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I suppose I should provide some more details regarding this last slide since it will be of the most interest to many readers. Here’s some more explanation regarding each of my 7 predictions:

(1) Renewed push for universal media ratings: This issue has always been hanging out there and I think we will continue to hear calls–from both policy makers and media critics–for some sort of universal rating system for all media. God only knows how that would work. The last Star Wars movie (“Revenge of the Sith”) yielded several distinct media products: a major theatrical motion picture, a video game, a book, a comic book, and even a musical soundtrack. Should they all be rated the same way using the same system? I think that would be difficult to pull off. More worrisome is the fact that any move toward a universal rating scheme would undermine much of the education and awareness-building efforts that have helped familiarize consumers (especially parents) with the ESRB and other existing private rating and labeling systems. Finally, because it is unlikely we will ever see a voluntary movement by all major media producers to abandon their existing rating schemes and adopt a universal system, such a move would likely only come about because of action by government officials. Of course, that raises a host of First Amendment issues. For that reason, we might instead see a push for…

(2) Oversight of ESRB by Congress or non-profit / academic groups: Some critics say that the ESRB needs more “objective” oversight by either a regulatory agency or some of the third-party group, like an academic institution. As I point out in some of those slides above, ratings will ALWAYS have a subjective element to them since raters all bring different values and insights to the task of judging artistic expression. So making the rating process more bureaucratic isn’t going to make matters any better. Instead, it will just politicize the system and slow it down. [See my lengthy essay on this issue from a few weeks ago.]

(3) More FTC oversight of retailer enforcement: The Federal Trade Commission already conducts secret shopper surveys and issues an occasional report about the “Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children.” Those reports has shown that retailer enforcement of the ESRB rating system is improving, but still needs to improve. [Here you will find my detailed thoughts on the conclusion of the last FTC report.] But there have been some calls in Congress for stepped-up FTC oversight, and potential penalties, for retailers who fail to enforce the system properly. (Remember Sen. Clinton’s “Family Entertainment Protection Act”?)

(4) Mandatory age verification for MMOGs & online activities: Here’s one to keep a close eye on. With a debate raging about the wisdom and effectiveness of age verification for social networking sites, it’s only a matter of time before online video games are brought into the discussion in a major way. The recent Bryon report in the UK included a discussion of this in the online gaming section of their final report. Stay tuned, this debate is set to explode here in the States.

(5) Mandatory parental controls defaults: One of my next white papers discusses the perils of government mandates that might force media & technology providers to not only embed parental controls in all their devices, but also turn them “ON” when they are shipped to market (meaning they would set to their most restrictive position as a defaults). For example, it could be required that every video game console be shipped with on-board screening technologies that were set to block any games rated above “E” (i.e., “Everyone”-rated games). Similarly, all personal computers or portable media devices sold to the public could be required to have filters embedded that were set to block all “objectionable” content, however defined. If “default” requirements such as this were mandated by law, parents would be forced to opt out of the restrictions by granting their children selective permission to content above a certain ESRB rating. In theory, this might help create another roadblock to underage access to some objectionable content, but it would also create an enormous consumer backlash and lead to a great deal of regulatory hassles and console hacking. Again, I’ve got an entire paper coming out on this issue from PFF next month that addresses my reservations with such a mandate.

(6) What happens when “AO” games hit consoles? I created some controversy recently when I noted that: “Whether any of us care to admit it, the fact that AO-rated games are currently kept off the major consoles and off the shelves at some major retailers (ex: Wal-Mart and Target) is probably the most important thing holding back a full-on legislative assault on video games.” Some took that to mean that I was advocating rigorous self-censorship of “AO” (Adults Only-rated) games. To the contrary, as I told MTV Multiplayer News, “I am in no way advocating that the industry hold off in terms of allowing complete creative expression.” And I also told MTV Multiplayer that I thought that eventually one of the major consoles–probably Sony–would cave and allow some AO-rated games on their platform. But make no doubt about it, when that happens, all hell is going to break loose. Not only with the typical pro-censorship crowd kick their complaint-generating factories into high gear, but a lot more average parents will protest the move and likely petition lawmakers for greater regulation of games or consoles.

(7) What about virtual reality games? And finally we come to virtual reality. All these other video game debates we have been having pale in comparison to the heated debate we can expect during the coming decade as virtual realities games and devices proliferate. And we all know they are coming. I fully expect that something like the Star Trek “holo-deck” will be in my living room by the time my kids are teenagers. We are already seeing more “tactile” devices coming to market, such as steering wheels and video game guns, that add a new layer of involvement to the games we play. Most recently, video game vests are hitting the market that simulate the sensation of being shot while playing a game. Once you combine these tactile technologies with more visually immersive visual display technologies, we will be well on our way to a serious VR world. And once they figure out a way to make it fully online and interactive, a huge policy debate is going to develop over the wisdom of letting people (especially kids) play holo-deck games where they actually feel like they are inside Halo or World of Warcraft, mowing down competitors with plasma rifles and broad swords. (Personally, I am very eager to try out “Resident Evil” this way!) Regardless, this debate is coming and it will be a very heated affair.

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