E.E. Just "Stories of Discovery" Public Lecture Series

Jaron Lanier, best-selling author of "You Are Not a Gadget" and "Who Owns the Future?"

Lecture title: "He with the Biggest Computer Wins: How We're Screwing Up the Economy and Society at Large with Bad Network Design, and How We Can Do Better"

Abstract: A better network architecture is needed if democracy is to persist when computation gets much better, later in this century. From finance to romance, human behavior is being manipulated by algorithms running in giant computers that spy on everyone and concentrate fantastic amounts of power and money for a small coterie of people. Unfortunately, the popular idea of "open culture" feeds this monster. The pattern must change before automation gets good later in this century, for otherwise mass unemployment will destabilize democracies and markets everywhere. The solution was foreseen at the birth of networked media over a half century ago. A network that keeps track of who made valuable bits possible, and the monetization of as much information as possible, would lead to a persistent bell curve distribution of wealth in an information economy- so that no elite could outspend and out-compute the majority. We must redirect the digital world towards this outcome.

Book signing to follow public lecture. Originally submitted by: Tien-Tien L. Jong