Towards Digital Enlightenment: Essays on the Dark and Light Sides of the Digital Revolution

Description

This new collection of essays follows in the footsteps of the successful volume Thinking Ahead - Essays on Big Data, Digital Revolution, and Participatory Market Society, published at a time when our societies were on a path to technological totalitarianism, as exemplified by mass surveillance reported by Edward Snowden and others. Meanwhile the threats have diversified and tech companies have gathered enough data to create detailed profiles about almost everyone living in the modern world - profiles that can predict our behavior better than our friends, families, or even partners. This is not only used to manipulate peoples’ opinions and voting behaviors, but more generally to influence consumer behavior at all levels. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are rapidly heading towards a cybernetic society, in which algorithms and social bots aim to control both the societal dynamics and individual behaviors. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii The World Today: A Net Assessment (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 1-4 Why Our Innovation System Is Failing and How to Change This (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 5-20 The Hidden Danger of Big Data (Carlo Ratti, Dirk Helbing)....Pages 21-23 Machine Intelligence: Blessing or Curse? It Depends on Us! (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 25-39 An Extension of Asimov’s Robotics Laws (Jan Nagler, Jeroen van den Hoven, Dirk Helbing)....Pages 41-46 Societal, Economic, Ethical and Legal Challenges of the Digital Revolution: From Big Data to Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Manipulative Technologies (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 47-72 Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? (Dirk Helbing, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ernst Hafen, Michael Hagner, Yvonne Hofstetter et al.)....Pages 73-98 Digital Fascism Rising? (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 99-102 The Birth of a Digital God (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 103-106 To the Elites of the World: Time to Act (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 107-120 Why We Need Democracy 2.0 and Capitalism 2.0 to Survive (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 121-156 How to Make Democracy Work in the Digital Age (Dirk Helbing, Stefan Klauser)....Pages 157-162 The Blockchain Age: Awareness, Empowerment and Coordination (Jeroen van den Hoven, Johan Pouwelse, Dirk Helbing, Stefan Klauser)....Pages 163-166 From War Rooms to Peace Rooms: A Proposal for the Pro-Social Use of Big Data Intelligence (Dirk Helbing, Peter Seele)....Pages 167-171 New Security Approaches for the Twenty-First Century: How to Support Crowd Security and Responsibility (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 173-186 Homo Socialis: The Road Ahead (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 187-200 Social Mirror: More Success Through Awareness and Coordination (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 201-212 Digitization 2.0: A New Game Begins (Dirk Helbing)....Pages 213-222