Evgeny Morozov: ‚We are abandoning all the checks and balances‘ | Technology | The Observer

 

Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, in Washington. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Polaris

Evgeny Morozov is a Belarus-born technology writer who has held positions at Stanford and Georgetown universities in the US. His first book, The Net Delusion, argued that „Western do-gooders may have missed how [the internet]… entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder – not easier –to promote democracy“. It was described as „brilliant and courageous“ by the New York Times. In his second book To Save Everything, Click Here, Morozov critiques what he calls „solutionism“ – the idea that given the right code, algorithms and robots, technology can solve all of mankind’s problems, effectively making life „frictionless“ and trouble-free. Morozov argues that this drive to eradicate imperfection and make everything „efficient“ shuts down other avenues of progress and leads ultimately to an algorithm-driven world where Silicon Valley, rather than elected governments, determines the shape of the future.