World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech

by Franklin Foer

This was an approach we pursued at the New Republic. Chris Hughes recruited the billionaire activist Tom Steyer to pay hundreds of thousands for a new section of our Web site that would cover how climate change played in congressional elections—even as Steyer spent millions trying to influence those elections to elevate the issue of climate change. Chris also recruited Credit Suisse to pay for a new section of our Web site devoted to the future of banking, just as the bank tried to recover from accusations of tax evasion. The advertisers were trying to buy New Republic editorial to convey exactly their desired message, without readers having any sense of their massive infusions of cash. We shouldn’t soften our description: This sort of arrangement is corrupt.

The problem is that the relationship between advertisers and journalism has become so murky. Rules have relaxed, norms have changed. Until recently, the American Society of Magazine Editors was staunchly traditionalist, sternly forbidding journalists to touch ad copy. But in 2015, the guidelines softened. A once shrill condemnation is now a weak suggestion. “Editors should avoid working with and reporting on the same marketer.” We need to understand these changes as dangerous surrenders.

Genius and originality were two of the most revelatory and lasting ideas to emerge from the intellectual revolutions of the eighteenth century.

Silicon Valley has waged war on professional writers, attempting to weaken the copyright laws that make it possible for authors to make a living from their pen. It has pursued a business plan that radically deflates the value of knowledge, which renders writing a cheap, disposable commodity.