Has Tech Lost All Humanity? With Mark Little

Conor Boyle (0:00)

Hello, I'm host Conor Boyle, and welcome to Intelligence Squared, the podcast about ideas that matter. In each episode, we speak to some of the world's most interesting thinkers, not simply about what they've written or created, but about the ideas that drive their work and why they matter now. In this episode, I'm speaking to Mark Little, entrepreneur and journalist whose work seeks to understand the impact of technology on media and democracy.

Mark has founded some really interesting companies, Kinzen, which he sold to Spotify, Storyful, which was the world's first social news agency, and prior to working in Tech et al, he was an excellent foreign correspondent for RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster. Today, we're going to explore the question of whether tech has lost its humanity and try to imagine a world where perhaps we wrestle back control of tech and AI from the tech giants and the big companies.

These are ideas that Mark explores in his new book, The Last Good Day on the Internet, which is just out. And we hope that by the end of today's episode, you might be feeling a little bit more hopeful about the possibilities the future has to offer. Mark, welcome to Intelligence Squared.

Mark Little (1:05)

It's a pleasure to be here, Conor.

Conor Boyle (1:07)

Let's start off with the obvious question, which is when was the last good day on the Internet?

Mark Little (1:11)

So it was November 2015 And when you say it to people, they immediately get it. It was the day that we had this pointless, but hugely entertaining debate about the dress. If you remember, there was this sort of optical illusion whether this dress was green and black or white and gold.

And it was considered, and I must admit, I have Charlie Wurzel of The Atlantic, the great internet culture writer to thank for this. He called that the last day that we really just had fun without any consequences on the Internet. So for me, this last good day on the Internet is kind of the last day collectively, we all felt more human by connecting on technology. It also happens to be around the time that the big tech platforms turn on those supercharged algorithms, which result then in what I think of as the unraveling of the open and collaborative Internet that we all now know and feel like we're trapped in. So the last good day on the Internet was my way of saying, what if you felt more human when you use technology intentionally? What would that feel like? And what would that then require you as an individual and as part of a collective effort?

What would it require you to be part of the solution? A new age. And so that for me is kind of the big idea. Read a lot of great books about people who've told us why technology is terrible. A lot of great books about people who've worked in technology companies to tell you why that happened. But not a lot of people talking about perhaps this moment of shift from an age of attention, which was all about algorithms, to an age of intention. When we all feel some sense of purpose and some sense of control when we use our tools of technology.

Conor Boyle (2:58)

And let's dwell on that for a second. And when I read that in the opening chapter of your book about the last good day, it did take me back to that time where there was a real exhilaration and a playfulness to social media in a way now, which maybe you feel a bit more exploited or that you're being pulled into something almost against your will. So it wasn't really that feeling of doing something collectively together, something fun. What were the main components of that internet before these supercharged algorithms really took hold?

Mark Little (3:30)

Well, remember, it was built by people who believed in what they call the gift economy, that the reason you used the internet was collectively, we could make it better together. We didn't do it for likes or clicks. We did it just because we had a chance to improve the software, improve the internet, the web. And I think what characterized the open and collaborative web, and I don't want to say it was perfect, but was a sense of serendipity. You stumbled across an idea that would change your life, or at least the most, the least important part would make you feel you're a part of something bigger, part of a community. And so I always think with the early internet, and I'll say that's probably lasting until the arrival of the algorithms, we did have that sense of stumbling across something that made us stop and feel like nostalgia for the future. You know, and I talk about it in the book, one of my magic moments was seeing an astronaut called Chris Hatfield in the space station. And he has this picture of an apple half eaten.