Tech Was Supposed To Be Society’s Great Equalizer. What Happened?

On the recent Atlantic's podcast Crazy/Genius, host Derek Thompson talks to computer scientist and data journalist Meredith Broussard with the aim of answering two questions: "One, how did the big tech story shift from optimism to fear? Two, where do we go from here?" I'm not sure if they manage to answer the first one, but they sure do answer the second. And as their discussion proceeds, they mention a couple of interesting considerations about where the tech industry's been and where it should be headed.

The episode starts with the early days of the Internet deeply rooted in the counterculture of the late 1960s and its Communalist movement. But as Thompson points out, tech companies have nothing to do with hippies any more. In fact, they are now the biggest corporations on the planet.

"Very quickly it became apparent that the kind of fantasies about the world that technology was going to bring us (...) weren't exactly that; [that they] were just fantasies; that the digital world was going to replicate all of the social and economic inequalities of the real world," says this episode's guest.

Broussard explains how tech has never been a utopia and brings up the pervasive problem of sexism faced by women in technology. She also outlines the issue of "technochauvinism", a term not referring to gender inequality, but rather to the idea so often espoused by the tech industry "that technology is always the highest and best solution", even if at odds with what people actually want. For instance, she believes that the lack of concern for User-Centered-Design may be the reason why self-driving cars won't be as successful as rideshare companies expect. And as a bonus, thanks to Broussard's clear and comprehensive explanation, you should finally be able to understand what A.I. actually is.