Three times a semester and six times a year if you would like to be informed of future events there is a signup sheet over there put your name and email in and we will we had have a pretty good ones. These three we have some great stuff plant. Tonights forum is being filmed by cspan so during the question part of the forum if you would go up to one of the microphones and also hopefully state your name. We then do a write up of all of the forms. And the last announcement as it is cosponsored by radius another group here i am thrilled to be able to introduce these three. It is a different three than we initially thought would be here. Because jeff how he calls me up at a little bit past five. Fortunately it is a brilliant journalist and his in his own right. Let me introduce to everyone. The author of the new book know it all. And i will also be a hashtag tonight and then i think moving forward. We Work Together a decade and a half ago i had known him ever since he is a great guy and a brilliant journalist. He wrote the link by link column. His first book the know it all is a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball. And even democracy. It was published in october 2017. It is available for purchase right here and in addition to supporting open discussion we also support both book stores and authors so please by all means buy the book its a great book. To his left is sarah m watson. She is a Technology Critic who writes and speaks about emerging issues in the intersection of technology her work has appeared in the atlantic. She is an affiliate with the brooklyn Client Center and author of the center for journalism. In the current state of journalism. And then of course to the right is chris couch. As science journalists who ive have the opportunity to work with for several years now. Shes also the court needed for the Commission Communications form. Heart bylines have appeared in no but next. We have also for your convenience put all of their twitter handles on the board and without further ado i will turn it over to chris. Sorry about that in addition to that book. We have a book have of the it media lab its also a great book. Both of those are available immediately. Now without further ado. Think you all for being here. We are so excited about this panel i feel like it addresses a lot of really important issues i want to kick off this penal by talking about the central argument of the book. Its really the disruption in the individualism. It has kind of in a lot of ways eroded humanity is that fair to say. The premise of this get to go. The answers today have it. Everybody has humanity. What we really talking are we really talking about that has happened. I approached some of this from the Computer Science aspect. Its one of the crucial mistakes or paths that we are on its kind of denying the humanity. I think about that its kind of like a well known antidote with the first design director who was asked to create design for gmail when they were doing it and he suggested a color. Instead of using the color they wanted. They went and tested 41 different shades of blue. He eventually resigned over that. To have a human vision for what they were doing and then i apologize for that. They say the color, and the shade of blue we pick is the most popular one. I think it is that breakdown. I think theyre not apologetic about it. Can you stick a little bit to what those outcomes are. For people that are not familiar with the intricacies of Silicon Valley. They are taking in this french philosophy and making it seem very normal and mainstream. The idea that we should regulate taxis or hotels or you can think of all the Different Companies that we should regulate. What they see on video should they just declare what they are doing. That is one part of their ideology. The taste for regulation in the trust of government is one part. I think the idea of free speech is another one. I know all of these issues are competent. I wrote a piece that was on new york. Com this week. Even back in the 80s where there there should be any limits on free speech. There was such a fierce back. To me having a limit on free speech is vital to having a community that is cohesive. That is another dangerous aspect. I think theyre doing all of this i think it is just having horrible consequences. I was certainly looking at it. A lot of what happened there bears out this point. The facts that these Big Companies are so blase about the idea that a foreign country could influence our election. Whether these powerful tools of targeting people should be used by anybody just to dash stir up anger and resentment. They are not seen themselves as custodians of powers. And maybe the utopian vision. That has the effect. People asked me what property do you have. Its clearly not the 2016 election. One thing was sort of a turning point. Its about using gmail. The idea that it would have a computer read your email in order to pack place ads for it. I remember thinking how i never mentioned the word cancer in an email. That it would be a custodian of my information. It would still feel like they have a right to commercialize it. When i think back on it. A lot of it sears work deals with the Technology Criticism not just the technology itself. But also the culture surrounding it. From your perspective do you agree with the premise absolutely agree with that. With the overall premise. I think a lot of people have started to unpack the kind of implications the ideologies that are hashed out. Obviously looking at the individuals who are coming up with these designs and looking at their assumptions and ideology. They really do matter. The biggest thing for me as i like to think about this in terms of optimization. I think most leaders in companies are designed around questions of optimization. Whether its the design itself getting you the information as fast as you can or evil as efficiently as possible. Those are questions of efficiency in optimizing for profit. Those are kind of taken for granted with the right terms of optimization. I think trying to unpack what those assumptions are is really productive starting point to say what of spending more time on facebook was in the optimization model. What if it was a quality of experience on facebook. What would that look like. Also what with that change. That is that cracks for the questions. The trick is using the terminology of the industry. And the way that they are thinking about problems is actually a productive productive way of sharing language. And trying to get at we havent necessarily agreed to the terms of optimization they are coming from it at a market perceptive. That is a natural way. We as a society can start to question us. One of the things in ways that they may not agree to. They really started with this. How did we get here. I think the way sarah said that. Its really spot on. She kind of classifies critics and i could see myself doing that. What shes talking about as practical ways of trying to get to a better place. Trying to ask Bigger Picture questions. I was almost going to be making it. And then there is that destruction that you should just give it one pass in harvesting it. You should go back a second time and get every little fruit and kernel that you missed. The poor people who live off of the gleaning. That is a metaphor again. I need to get all of the content out of it. Or you can say youre part of a society. Let some kind of scratch be there for other people. Someone pointed out that he cared so much about this election meddling that the company was can spend good to spend all this money to hire people and thats what he mentioned in an investment call. The natural, it was they basically make money from the current situation. That is again the efficiencies and the way that they are set up that are really troubling. I was trying to look back. I did not really know these answers. You will see pieces of the book. In the accounts for some of these extreme ideological free speech. And lack of diversity. Then i credit or blame them for the kind of profit seeking. The google case was it very enlightening because you go back and read the original paperless papers it was incredible invention. I think everybody agrees that they were standing on the shoulders of others. They really created something and made it coherent. It was incredible it was an amazing invention. They also explained why it needed to be advertising. In the actual academic world. It needed to be a place where it was transparent. Now we just come to accept the idea with the secret things. They are constantly tinkering with this. Its very bad for trusting the system because you dont have any screening of it. Basically they are serious academics. Office incredible idea that they have. You end up using so much and bandwidth at stanford that they were told to if to start figuring out how to pay for this. Can sanford have said this is a great invention we are to gonna pay for it. Its very important for the study of society and science. They were told you better figure out a way to do this. That they were not incorporated. A person who have been at stanford wrote them a check for google incorporation. The rest is history. I do feel like that its a little coordinated. A little corruption for them in for facebook as well. They really have some idealism and they were in all of how computers and they were trying to become billionaires in the book you will see their other characters who are bankers and that was really what they were trying to do. To figure a way they were led astray a little bit. You had written extensively about how coverage of the Technology World has changed over time can you explain a little bit about how that has the media has involved. Evolved. In the Research Report i think one of the things i was trying to look at was coverage from the early almost breathless excitement about the. Com boom and all that energy that went into covering and then later in the google and facebook and others here. Starting from very businessoriented coverage models were from a tech blogger model. That breathless coverage moving into something a little more concerned with as the technology starts to intersect with a lot of things like politics in people in society those were shifting the narrative about what matters about technology. And why this is changing our lives in affecting our lives. The iphone comes out. And we all the sudden had dramatically changed our daytoday relationship. A computer in our pocket basically. That was still in that gadget excitement and then we had like a 2013 moment which is a snowden Movement Technology has both good and bad uses. That to me is the larger discourse moment they are willing to acknowledge that. What is really interesting right now there is franklin thoresen book. A little bit more about these companies with knowledge and accusations. It was a lot more about the monopolistic approach about the attention. And they are talking about these companies in the information i think its an interesting moment right now. All these books are being written before the crisis hit is fascinating the writing has been on the wall for a long time they thought there was a market for these books. Where is the audience. He was who is this for. It was sort of an important moment. I wrote a piece earlier than that about this german politician who petition to get all of his data about all of the tracking that was done. It was again can you point twopoint out in that paper you wrote that the breakthrough is hard. Until Something Like this really gets attention for a lot of Different Reasons it probably takes a while for people to see it. I think that probably was a big thing. Were talking about earlier the problem of access. For them to have access to these companies they have to stay on the good side. And that is especially true if you are the Business Tech journalist covering the story. As more journalists from different walks of life are also coming to terms with technology. The narrative starts to change. Its also one of the benefits. From leading leaving and that gadget phase. There was a sense of getting access is usually important but now we are beyond the gadget phase. Is that a will told story explaining that is there. I didnt seek out a lot of access. I knew that there was not interested in talking about. There is an incredible site called the zuckerberg files. The professor kind of over privacy issues. It has access everything he has ever said since he was 19. Likewise until he deleted all of his tweets he had tweeted hundred thousand times. There was more than enough about him. There was an early book he wrote they all have a lot of documentation and interview. It was often very stenographic and not that revealing. I think there is an appreciation for the deeper journalism. I think thats great. I think thats what we need too. Has to be supported by the institutions to be able tos sneak stick their neck out. I think of the amazon Workplace Environment example just to fill everybody in. They ran a pretty large piece on the inner workings of amazon employees and it really spans from very low level all the way up to not all the way to the top but they really a detailed the work conditions of that place and ended up getting lots of attention. I felt like the response that he gave wasnt really a classic libertarian response. I think he embodies a lot of what im saying in the book. It cant be true because these are people that could go to another company. If they werent being treated right they just wouldnt be working here. There can be the sexual discrimination because there would be the arbitrary opportunities. And therefore it cant exist. The market would correct for a. That is another theme of the book. The detachment from reality. When you ask about their attentions. Theres something very seductive about how they can erase all of that. It is a new world. I dont know if its in the book but about how it have a huge product. We are so proud. They were walking in saint this is really offensive. My having that as their slogan they were in essence saying what we have now is fair. If you are representative of unit cut it. I think it eventually took the carpet away. They really believed the world has been remade because it is a Digital World none of the problems are obviously current dont matter. I wanted to go on that. Its clearly articulates the complete disregard for the physical world. They are in seattle. For them to get another Silicon Valley job there had to operate their families and in their lives and everything else. Its not the question is whether its on purpose or not. And he saying that. Is he really not understanding that thats i always got hung up on. Both in terms of biases within the culture of technology and underrepresentation of another a number of groups of people. Whether that is as Computer Vision systems that has a hard time detecting. There was an article fairly recently on women having a hard time getting prosthetics that fit. Some of these problems just stem from when you have a dominant group. It so much so much very much dominated by white men. From your perspective do you see this type of issue changing. Changing over time are right now. There are books that are coming out. Theres a lot more Media Coverage on this type of things. Are you still see it as we saw a really long way to go. I would say that it would require for it to change the book is saying that these companies are antidemocratic and they are against democracy. How do we correct for the them to head wheelchair access and ideally we have a democracy where they get to express their opinion and thats how you represent people. There was the hearing that the senate had about the top lawyers. And she was explaining to them very patiently we live in a representative democracy. Thats how we do it. How do you ensure fairness. I remember hearing it said that the japanese if there had been a japanese american representative it would have happened. You need to have some political way of correcting these things. As long as there can argue that they will self regulate. It wont change. Im optimistic that there could be some sort of a wave election that will present a new path but i dont think having done that themselves the idea of a self regulation self regulation as it wont work. It is 60 of people that are talking about this is another problem that stems from peer self regulation. The number of issues that are connected to that are just astronomical. If i were given free will to be in charge of everything i dont think i would be quite as fair. I think its a little scary that you get the sense. I think one point of the book. Is he is not an outlier. Hes often described as a fringe character he is really expressing the main thought there which is democracy is bad. You have not if not smart people running the world. I think they really believe that. He was saying he believes in regulation they just think i think it gets down to our democracy and its really important. Youve written about how specifically within technology that that world is in certain ways very reflective of technology and female voices have been overlooked in a systemic way. Can you talk a little bit about do you see that end of it changing at all. As part of why i was looking at this larger echo system a people who are writing about these things. Certainly in the last couple of years it has drastically changed which is all for the better. I think that has put pressure on Silicon Valley to change. At the very least speaking of now versus in the future. I think we head at least seen the kind of oh yes we will work on diversity for hiring. And thinking more about you were users interests and needs. On the writing side of it. I wasnt really interested in looking at a set of people who were covering technology but the rest of the people who were also contributing to a larger discourse. Some of that has to do with looking at a whole range of writers not Just Technology and journalists whose beat his technology. But the people that think of themselves as critics, people who are just writing an oped because their Academic Work has it direct response to the Current Issue on russia for example. In trying to articulate this larger group. And one of them writing the terrible things happening at their workplace were critiquing a technology that does not include fitness tracking i