World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech

In conversation with Nicholas Thompson, Editor, Wired
Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech and offers a toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science—from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today’s Silicon Valley—Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. In this talk, Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.
About Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and fellow at the New America Foundation. For seven years, he served as editor of The New Republic. Foer has written for Slate and New York magazine. His previous book How Soccer Explains the World has been translated into 27 languages and was the winner of a National Jewish Book Award.
About Nicholas Thompson
Nicholas Thompson is an American journalist and editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine. Previously, Nicholas has served as both a journalist and editor at The New Yorker magazine. He is the author of The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War and has been a contributor on CBS News, CNN's American Morning, and NBC's Today Show.
About the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium
Berkeley’s Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium is an internationally recognized forum for presenting new ideas that challenge conventional wisdom about art, technology, and culture. This series, free of charge and open to the public, presents artists, writers, curators, and scholars who consider contemporary issues at the intersection of aesthetic expression, emerging technologies, and cultural history, from a critical perspective.
ALL SEATS ARE AVAILABLE ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED BASIS
This year, we are excited to present World Without Mind with Frank Foer as part of the following series:
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
2017
09/25 World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech
Frank Foer, Journalist, New York
In partnership with the Graduate School of Journalism
10/23 Socially Engaged Internet-Art: Aesthetics of Information Ethics
Paolo Cirio, Artist, New York
In partnership with the Department of Art Practice
11/6 We must conjure our Gods before we obey them
Michael Rock, Designer, 2X4, New York
In partnership with the Department of Architecture & Urban Planning
2018
01/29 Indexical Ambivalence
Kris Paulsen, Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, Ohio
In partnership with the History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series
02/05 Connectivity as Human Right
Nicholas Negroponte, Architect, MIT, Massachussetts
In partnership with the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation
03/19 Yugoexport Is the Name of this Oral Corporation
Irena Haiduk, Artist, Belgrade, Serbia
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
04/09 new art, flag art, good art, portal art
Ian Cheng, Artist, Los Angeles
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
04/16 Regents Lecture 2018
Angela Davis, activist & scholar, UC Santa Cruz