Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?

by Tom A. Wheeler

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "a potent primer on the need to rein in big tech" and Kirkus Reviews as "a rock-solid plan for controlling the tech giants," readers will be energized by Tom Wheeler's vision of digital governance. Featured on Barack Obama's 11/3/23 list of "What I’m Reading on the Rise of Artificial Intelligence"

An accessible and visionary book that connects the experiences of the late 19th century’s industrial Gilded Age with its echoes in the 21st century digital Gilded Age.

Hailed by Ken Burns as one of the foremost “explainers” of technology and its effect throughout history, Tom Wheeler now turns his gaze to the public impact of entrepreneurial innovation. In Techlash, he connects the experiences of the late 19th century’s industrial Gilded Age with its echoes in the 21st century digital Gilded Age. In both cases, technology innovation and the great wealth that it created ran up against the public interest and the rights of others. As with the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age that it created, new digital technology has changed commerce and culture, creating great wealth in the process, all while being essentially unsupervised.

Warning that today is not the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” some envision, Wheeler calls for a new era of public interest oversight that leaves behind industrial era regulatory ideas to embrace a new process of agile, supervised and enforced code setting that protects consumers and competition while encouraging continued innovation. Wheeler combines insights from his experience at the highest echelons of business and government to create a compelling portrait of the need to balance entrepreneurial innovation with the public good.

Genres: Technology, Nonfiction, Artificial Intelligence

280 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2023

Reviews

[Angie Boyter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent discussion and call for oversight of technology, less impressive writing
In this thought-provoking book, Tom Wheeler, the former chair of the US Federal Communications Commission, explores the twenty-first century’s new Gilded Age of technology and identifies both the need for and the challenges to regulation.
The book begins with a comparison of today’s digital Gilded Age to the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century with its life-changing inventions like railroads and telegraphs; it gave interesting insights into both periods of time. The earlier Gilded Age moved governments to impose unprecedented levels of regulation in response to the challenges presented by those technologies. Wheeler discusses how today’s technology requires new kinds of regulation and calls for regulating not just operations but design to protect the users and society. He has individual chapters covering privacy by design to prevent companies from abusing their access to customer information, competition by design to prevent harmful monopolies, and truth by design to address problems like fake news and “technology-driven tribalism”.
In addition to the comparison with the first Gilded Age, Wheeler also has interesting information about action (or inaction) being taken today internationally and criticizes the US for lagging behind some initiatives taken in other countries.
The excellent discussion and recommendations are worth reading. The fascinating tidbits of information tickled my intellectual curiosity bone, and I kept finding myself recognizing experiences of my own that were relevant to what he was saying.
Despite the good analysis, I felt the book went a bit overboard in portraying the large tech companies as “bad guys” rather than simply focused on their own interests.
Be warned also that reading the book can be a bit of a slog. The author makes excellent observations and points but makes them over and over and also uses terms that are not very commonly understood, like “consumer-facing” services and platforms. Do not let the style rob you of the opportunity to hear the important message, which needs to be heard.
I received an advance review copy of this book from Edelweiss and the publisher.

[Alley Mcintosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid read. Leans somehow extreme left referencing conversations on China having superior policy. Ultimately, I would recommend it as a more introduction to the topic

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The age of monopolies, a modern gilded age outlined, mapped and plotted by an experienced cartographer - I wonder if we can find our way out?

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting comparison of our times compared to the Gilded Age with solutions that I do not anticipate seeing anytime soon under the current administration.

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the tech-related “journalism” books I’ve come across, this was among the better ones.

It breaks down the economics of the tech platform era (vs. the industrial era). It then explains why any antitrust regulation for tech platforms must be tailored for this era (vs. borrowed from outdated industrial era policies). The book is also new enough that it touches on some concerns re: AI.

IMO, this book is accessible to both tech folks and non-tech folks, but YMMV.

[Taylor Barkley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tired arguments with one sided presentation of the issues. If you just assume that the voluntary trade of information is a harm then this is the book for you.