Meganets : how digital forces beyond our control commandeer our daily lives and inner realities / David B. Auerbach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Auerbach, David B., author.

Contributor:

John Lammey Stewart Memorial Library Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet governance.

Internet--Social aspects.

Internet.

Metaverse.

Genre:

Nonfiction.

Physical Description:

vii, 339 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : PublicAffairs, 2023.

Summary:

"David Auerbach's exploration of the phenomenon he has identified as the meganet begins with a simple, startling revelation: There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives. From corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit - to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming - to government systems such as China's Social Credit System and India's Aadhaar. As we increasingly integrate our society, culture and politics within a hyper-networked fabric, Auerbach explains how the interactions of billions of people with unfathomably large online networks have produced a new sort of beast: ever-changing systems that operate beyond the control of the individuals, companies, and governments that created them. Meganets, Auerbach explains, have a life of their own, actively resisting attempts to control them as they accumulate data and produce spontaneous, unexpected social groups and uprisings that could not have even existed twenty years ago. They constantly modify themselves in response to user behavior, resulting in collectively authored algorithms none of us intend or control. These enormous invisible organisms exerting great force on our lives are the new minds of the world, increasingly commandeering our daily lives and inner realities"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

The new minds of the world

A world too big to know

No center to hold

Discovering the meganet

The meganet as game and commerce

Majority rules

The limits of control

Inside the meganet's brain

Taming the meganet

Gracefully passing the torch.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John Lammey Stewart Memorial Library Fund.

ISBN:

9781541774445

1541774442

OCLC:

1348102307

Publisher Number:

99994892438