in the United States were in the middle of an election season and as a voter in
the United States I would ask our candidates to at two to actually
acknowledge and provide proposals that are realistic about how they are going
to take care of workers and the middle class in the midst of these massive
economic transformations that are aided by private corporate run technology that
we're witnessing all around us I would ask our candidates again in the United
States election to explain to us how they are going to maintain economic
security in a country that give becomes more and more economically unequal how
they're gonna ensure that technological transitions are ones that benefit all of
us and how they can introduce work of the future where the digital economy
actually works for everybody for technology users and workers of the
future there are a number of different steps that we can take they aren't
sufficient to overcome these inequalities that I'm writing about and
Beyond the Valley but they are really important nonetheless first of all one
of the most powerful aspects of the internet which still exists is the
ability to learn from lots of different streams of content and you know I as a
university professor a bunch of the places I went to university at both my
undergrad and graduate degrees offer free online and open courses completely
free taught by professors at Stanford at MIT you know and doesn't have to just be
those universities it could be almost anywhere right so I would really
encourage everybody to take you know no need to be scared about the technical
side of things but to take the right types of classes on data literacy
technological literacy artificial intelligence and ethics not because you
have to be a geek or you want to become a techie right but because these are the
new languages by which human possibilities and actually human
sociality like our ability to communicate are being expressed as we've
soaked ever as we've spoken about before so that's part one right like take
advantage of the open Internet but part two is be really as much as
possible try to be critical play with different kinds of platforms right so
like what have you look used DuckDuckGo instead of Google how would the results
be different what have you deleted just play what have you deleted like your
cache in your search history would that impact anything on Google develop a
literacy through playfulness try to understand in a more relational or
experiential sense what digital pathways might look like that's a second point
the third I would say is there are a number of good books and writers and
talks and TED Talks etc I hope I'm one of them with my book beyond the valley
but there are a number of others who are writing for a completely mainstream
public about these digital transformations and I would really
encourage everybody to look at some of these books and I'd be happy to suggest
some as well Cathy O'Neil she's pretty incredible she wrote a book called
weapons of mass destruction it's a really cute title and it's just a really
really good book and it's an important book but there are other books as well
that we can consider and last and I think very importantly is to look at the
right journalistic sources that are also reporting on these issues
ProPublica has done great work on this the intercept has done some work on this
The Guardian has done some work on this there are a lot of different kinds of
platforms wired of course has done great work on this and more than anything we
need to pressure our companies that are making labor and work obsolete in the
interests of innovation its innovation for whom is really the question we have
to ask them for all the jobs for all economic security you take away you need
to provide us with something - and here are all these different possibilities we
can engage with from you know thinking about universal basic income ideas to
work our owned cooperative ideas to regulatory ideas to competitive market
ideas there's a lot out there and I ask us all to to maintain a little bit of
optimism but push you know we got to push on all fronts we are at an
inflection point when it comes to top-down
control over very many different aspects of our lives through privatized
corporate power over technology we can work with these guys and try to push
them to make sure that they restore balance in our lives