Cautionary tales about tech

There seem to be a lot of cautionary tales about technology around at the moment. I saw ‘Her’ last weekend and like all good sci-fi, it’s not really about technology, but it does raise some interesting questions.

Over Christmas I also read The Circle by Dave Eggers which takes a while to get going but is a great read. It’s the being forced to live your life under surveillance — the tyranny of openness — that I find most troubling.

I also caught Disconnect a few weeks ago which in some ways was the scariest of them all showing three stories of the internet multiplying crime and malicious behaviour very quickly — all of them very believable. A bit like Hollywood does Tom Scott.

Technology isn’t good or evil but it does have values baked into it. It’s up to you what you do with it but it’s also up to us as the founders, engineers, designers and marketeers to make it as positive as we can.

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