System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

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Read this if you want to understand how to shape our technological future and reinvigorate democracy. This forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professors reveals how big tech's obsession with optimization has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps to change course, renew democracy, and save ourselves. A naive optimism about technology's potential has shifted to a dystopian focus on biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. Many accept a future designed by technologists, venture capitalists, and politicians without questioning it. System Error exposes the root of our predicament: big tech's relentless focus on optimization drives a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes information. With insights from a philosopher at the intersection of tech and ethics, a political scientist who served under Obama, and the director of Stanford's undergraduate Computer Science program (also an early Google engineer), the authors reveal how to hold that power accountable. As big tech's dominance poses societal challenges, they provide provocative insights and concrete solutions to help everyone understand the stakes and regain control over technology instead of letting it control us.