Technology Fears and Scapegoats

Robert D. Atkinson is the founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the science and technology policy think tank. His previous books include Big is Beautiful (The MIT Press, 2018), Innovation Economics (Yale, 2012), Supply-Side Follies (Rowman Littlefield, 2007), and The Past and Future of America’s Economy (Edward Elgar, 2005). David Moschella is a nonresident senior fellow at ITIF, in charge of its “Defending Digital” project. For more than a decade, Moschella was Head of Worldwide Research for IDC. His previous books include Seeing Digital (DXC Technology, 2018), Customer-Driven IT (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), and Waves of Power (AMACOM, 1997). He has lectured and consulted on technology trends and strategies in more than 30 countries.

• - Introduction. The roots and risks of today’s techno-mythologies.- 1. Technology is changing the world as never before.- 2. Technology is destroying individual privacy.- 3. Social media is polarizing America.- 4. Technology is driving today’s societal distrust.- 5. AI’s arrival is an atomic bomb moment.- 6. Social media is the leading source of misinformation.- 7. Your data is gold.- 8. Digital technology is dangerously “addictive”.- 9. The internet is extinguishing local languages.- 10. Social media is an existential threat to democracy.- 11. The pace of technology change is accelerating.- 12. Technology increases societal biases.- 13. Big Tech faces no competition.- 14. Silicon Valley doesn’t value diversity.- 15. Facial recognition is inherently biased.- 16. Big Tech should be arbiters of “the truth”.- 17. Digital technology is increasingly disruptive.- 18. Strong privacy regulations spur digital adoption.- 19. Big Tech practices “data imperialism” in emerging markets.- 20. BigData systems can’t protect individual privacy.- 21. Data is the new oil.- 22. Productivity gains no longer benefit U.S. workers.- 23. Corporate profits are at an all-time high.- 24. Technology is wiping out the middle class.- 25. AI will lead to the end of work.- 26. Digital copying is victimless.- 27. U.S. broadband lags behind other developed nations.- 28. The internet is destroying journalism.- 29. Market concentration is at an all-time high.- 30. Big Pharma is driving high health care costs.- 31. Small businesses create most new Jobs and innovations.- 32. We have all the technology we need to fight climate change.- 33. China has invented a new form of capitalism.- 34. American manufacturing is roaring back.- 35. India will save the west from China.- 36. The EU’s digital rules are a model for the world.- 37. Antitrust actions are needed to curb Big Tech.- 38. Federal R&D crowds out private R&D.- 39. Industrial policy is not the American way.- 40. Industrial policy doesn’t work.- Conclusion. Returning to a pro-innovation American agenda.