data protection, industry regulation, AI ethics, labor laws, health data laws, job licensure, sharing economy regulation, etc. Even if it sounds mind-numbingly dull, this must happen, and it’s up to us to participate and help reset the governance structures of our new machines.12 Show agency over your future. Waiting for “someone else” to figure this out for you — your family, your company, your country — is a mistake. If you’re a member of a democratic society, you have the right (obligation, really) to exercise authority over how you manage tech, use tech (don’t be a troll), and — critically — how you participate in the democratic process to govern tech. Sitting on the sidelines is for wimps. Don’t.
13 Recognize that “off” may sound enticing, but it’s unlikely. Can we turn off tech? Disconnect? Go dark? Maybe, but it’s not easy. For many of us, it’s simply not possible. (And what’s the fun in that?!) What we can do, must do, is reflect on how we want to engage with tech, decide what we want for our societies (and ourselves), and then act accordingly. Maybe we can’t turn it “off,” but we sure as hell can turn it down!
And here, further, and specifically, we recommend for consideration the following 10 tactics to be instituted without further delay. (Remember, we promised to begin to address the tough, controversial, and important questions!) These are framed within a US context, but they are relevant and applicable in many other countries.
1 Establish a Federal Technology Administration (FTA). This organization would sit supra to the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Akin to the Federal Drug Administration, it would have overall responsibility for creating relevant, contemporary legal frameworks and regulatory licensing for technology for the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries.
2 Within the FTA, establish a US Data Authority (USDAu). Akin to how the UK Atomic Energy Authority is a function of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the USDAu would focus on establishing policies guiding the ethical use of data and algorithms in the commercial sector. It should be staffed with technologists and non-technologists.
3 Institute data ownership and portability legislation. Laws should mandate personally identifiable data and meta data to be the property of individuals, not the organizations that capture that data. Individuals must have the right to control their data, including porting it from one service provider to another. They must also have the right to entirely withdraw their data from a service provider.
4 Institute data and algorithm audit legislation. The USDAu should have the legal right to inspect the data social media providers have about their users, and how decisions made by algorithms are arrived at. These audits should be made available to the general public.
5 Prohibit political advertising on social media. Federal law should prevent any organized group from placing any form of political advertising on any social media platform.
6 Repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law should recognize that social media providers are publishers of information and should be held to the same standards as other types of publishers.
7 Prohibit use of social media by people under the age of 18. Akin to automobiles, weapons, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, marriage, and military service, social media should have a lower age entry barrier.
8 Establish Social Media User License (SMUL) legislation. Similar to driver’s education for cars, before being allowed to use social media at age 18, individuals and individuals within organizations should receive training and instruction on its safe operation, leading up to being granted a user’s license. This license should be revokable based on subsequent actions and offenses.
9 Establish federal protection of sovereignty against data incursion. The FTA would establish federal control mechanisms to intercept and screen out external data entering the US that is illegal, disruptive, and malign.
10 Overrule anonymity in for-profit social and media platforms. Anonymous speech in the US is rightfully protected by the First Amendment to ensure all opinions get a chance to be assessed. However, anonymity in for-profit social platforms and media channels has led to toxic troll armies, cancel culture, propaganda-as-news, and bot farms without accountability. The FTA should create a licensing program, akin to Twitter’s blue verified badge, for individual or organizational contributors to social media platforms. Any communications via for-profit social and media platforms must be tagged back to the SMUL owner. The FTA should also establish and manage a fully open “digital public square” that protects unfettered, and anonymous, free speech while filtering unprotected hate speech.
This book is a tough-love letter to technology at a time when it has never been more important. COVID-19 is literally and metaphorically a bug in our system. In the months and years ahead, we must broaden our minds — and our policies — to build a better, healthier system, not just to neutralize the bug. The current (and accelerating) transmission speed of people, viruses, news, opinion, and capital is unsustainable. Tech is the engine of that transmission. Brakes are needed before we crash and burn.
We may seem critical, sometimes even harsh, about where we are today, but we take this tone not because we come to bury tech but to praise it.
We want to save tech, help it mature, help it help us, keep it On, not Off. Our path ahead is not to slay the Monster but rather to tame it, to leverage its power, to reorient technology as a tool for good.
Easy? No. An unfolding path ahead? Yes!
The Fourth Industrial Revolution isn’t simply for the folks on top of the Davos mountains. It’s for everyone. This is our revolution. This is our monster to tame. Our future. Let’s make it what we want it to be.
Notes
1 1. Gartner. (2019). Gartner says global IT spending to reach $3.8 trillion in 2019 (January 28). https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-01-28-gartner-says-global-it-spending-to-reach--3-8-trillio.
2 2. The average non-fiction book runs around 65,000 or 70,000 words. We kept this to about half that by spending days, nights, and weekends over the past several years grinding the ideas down as far as we could, inspired by the old adage, “If I’d had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” You’ll no doubt conclude that every chapter in our short book could be its own long book, but we’ve tried to take out all the extra stuffing and clichés, so you can read it in a couple of hours. (You’re welcome!)
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