Jaron Lanier: the digital pioneer who became a web rebel –interview

is one of the most respected voices in technology, a visionary who helped shape our digital culture. Recently, however, he began to warn against the consequences of flight probably in a technological future. This is what explains why he became a dissenting voice - and what worries more

Jaron Lanier is the rarest of rare birds - an uber-geek who is very critical of the world created by the technology he helped to create. Now, at age 50, became known in the 1980s as a pioneer in the field of "virtual reality" - the development of computer-generated environments where people can interact real. Since then, it has attracted the label "visionary" is not always a compliment in the computer industry, which is designated as the

New Yorker memorable said, "The ability of mercury penetration and lack of practical skills."

In person, it looks like the idea of ??taking a technology guru: thick, casual clothing, no socks, beard and dreadlocks. However, they also have good people skills. He is friendly, intelligent, friendly and talkative. Her shrill voice belies its physical volume and laughed a lot. He is a talented musician who is widely read and write prose accessible and sometimes eloquent. His latest book -

Who Owns the Future

- is sobering reading for anyone who cares about what the cultural critic Neil Postman called "Technopoly" - the The main objective belief that labor and human thought is the calculation of technical efficiency, which is above the human trial.

Lanier thought in this direction for some time. An earlier book of his -

not a gadget: A Manifesto

- argued that the Internet was in jeopardy human interaction, we stifle creativity and change people . Lanier was particularly scathing about remix culture, he considered not only ethically questionable, but also doomed to failure in the long term. If we have a world in which artists can not live on their work, eventually you run out of things to remix. His new book this perspective much further articulates three main ideas. The first is that the Internet has encouraged us to process information in the frivolous spirit manifested by the trope "information wants to be free." So, treat it as if it was free and therefore make it more difficult for certain types of work to earn decent livings. But once you get to the point that the world is really run by the software, this view will be relaxed economically unsustainable.

The second idea is that the decisions we make in the design of technology systems will eventually come back to haunt us. One of the heroes of Lanier Ted Nelson, the visionary who invented hypertext and imagined a world in which everything is written dynamically linked so that mankind could be infinitely creative in combining ideas. But Nelson believes that the relationship must be a two way process and also include micro-payments, so everyone will get paid every time someone uses their profession. Finally, we have a world of hypertext in the web form, but with a road linking only.

Finally, Homer is a metaphor to highlight what is wrong with our current ecosystem. The web has evolved from what geeks call a client-server model to a system dominated by what Lanier calls "mermaid servers" such as Facebook, which contain billions of Internet users in slavery without sharing wealth generated with the people who create the wealth in the first place. In the Odyssey, Ulysses Circe warns against mermaids "that enchant all who come near them." If someone gets too close to them unwisely said, "his wife and children will never be welcome at home, sitting in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song." Addicted to Facebook, please copy.

John Naughton:

Many commentators

characterize as an "against-" by offering a story that goes against conventional wisdom on our interconnected world . The problem with this qualification, however, is that most other geeks Mavericks not, then it certainly is. You say that your colleagues technicians tolerate dissent of his story. It sounds like they take a condescending attitude. It's like they say, "Oh, it's just Jaron off on one of his rants again" And behind this is an implicit consequence -. Whether their belief in the story will not be diminished by what you say. Is that how you see it?

Jaron Lanier:

I'm not the only person who thinks too technical, but I'm the only one who also writes. I have a foot in both worlds. And there are other numbers that are noteworthy. At the beginning of the

not a gadget , for example, is a list of people they regarded as belonging to the humanist tradition computer. And some of them write very well. However, in the current group of computer scientists do not know if someone else do what I do. This is what worries me - the fact that there is more diversity in the writing of the computer. It's not that I hope you will agree with me, but I expected more diversity than I do.

JN:

are very good at explaining how, once it becomes an established technology, we become locked into it. It becomes an important part of the infrastructure of our lives that change is unthinkable. And yet, I think if radical changes we then headed to serious problems. If you are right about "lock-in" does not mean that his campaign is essentially Don Quixote - which are the windmills

JL:

In truth, I was more chimerical in the period leading up to the current orthodoxy. What I said in the 1980s

was entirely chimerical. Now they see me as more realistic and grounded. I have many emails from people who agree with me, but are impatient and want to propose methods to move to a better situation very quickly - with a sort of Ponzi scheme that people buy quickly, causing things change quickly. I always say to these people that what I am advocating is in fact a process slower and more deliberative. I'd rather have 20 or 30 years, it is likely that the time we have before automation jobs crisis become serious. What I prefer is to defend not change as quickly as possible, but to engage in a political dialogue and long-term deliberation, why I wrote a book instead of proposing a Ponzi scheme to cause a rapid transition. In addition, our current arrangements can not drive to lock the end, because it is not sustainable.

JN:

You said hard things about the mentality that celebrates our ecosystem of networked information. Expressions such as "digital Maoism" and "hive mind" come to mind. But "Maoism" was an ideology that was responsible for the deaths of between 18 million and 40 million people. Were you using captivating images to shock people out of their complacency?

JL:

interesting, I think I remember that "digital Maoism" was not my money. It was a title chosen by John Brockman for a song that I wrote. Probably not something I would say to myself, because it has a. alarmist Red bait or the if I used the "hive mind" term time time, was not invented by me, but by Kevin Kelly, I think.

JN:

One of the things that struck me forcefully in his writing, it is thought that is implicit in all the elections he is a technique some philosophy or ideology. The Internet that we use today, for example, has been identified as one of its most important characteristics, because the designers are not concerned about the possibility of trusting the system users. But it is not the only type of internet that you may have.

Similarly, the World Wide Web as provided by Tim Berners-Lee could have bidirectional link embedded in it (which would have provided a system of mutual settlements), more than one way link embedded in the original design. Part of his argument, as I understand it, is that some design decisions back to haunt you.


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