How To Fix the Future

Commentator and entrepreneur Keen (The Internet Is Not the Answer) looks to the past, using Thomas More's Utopia as a touchpoint, to address the role of humans in a technology-dominated present and future. Referencing Gordon Moore's 1965 Law, which predicted the rapid acceleration of computing power, Keen posits Thomas More's Law as the responsibility of human beings to better the world in humanistic ways. Through these travels, Keen contrasts tech-savvy Estonia, and its focus on openness and data integrity, with Russia and its manipulation of data to undermine truth. He similarly compares Singapore, which uses technology to build citizen trust in government, with China, which applies technology to upend trust and consolidate power. Noting that social and economic ills of the digital age mirror those of the Industrial Revolution, Keen argues that reforms once unimagined (e.g., free public education) are now so ingrained in most societies that their absence is unthinkable. He asserts that today's challenges can be met through a combination of regulation, innovation, civic responsibility, consumer choice, and education.