INTELLIGENT DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS

Alford proposes a plan for building a future in which humans and technology work harmoniously together in this nonfiction work.

In his nonfiction debut, the author, a digital technology executive, entrepreneur, and software developer, asserts that the hyper-saturation of technology and the overconsumption of digital media has frayed our ability to focus deeply on important matters: “The growth of strictly digital interaction has made it difficult to cultivate authentic connections to other people,” he writes. To avoid the nihilism that results from this isolation, Alford urges a reimagining of terms: these new technologies aren’t just machines, he argues; they’re doorways to new “microbiomes” that will lead to an “intimate partnership with the microscopic world.” By thinking of new technologies simply as tools to use, the author posits, we have built a “damaging co-dependency” that can only be dismantled by the adoption of a unifying goal humans can share withtechnology, a goal with many aims, including supporting physical and mental health, compounding knowledge over generations, and defending freedom and resisting oppression. In a series of vividly illustratedchapters, Alford develops his vision for transforming our conception of “smart” technologies from instruments to partners. Although some of his proposals are intriguingly non-paradigmatic, the author has a penchant for easy cliches (“We are drowning in information but starving for intelligence”). Still, the text is often thought-provoking when assessing our relationships with technologies old and new. Many readers will likely take issue with the book’s core conception, since most people quite understandably do think of technology as a tool and don’t want it to be anything else—the mere idea of partnering up with AI will doubtless give those readers the creeps. Alford’s idea of fixing “our broken relationship with data” is compelling, but buyer, beware: it comes with a great deal of woo-woo.

A daring if improbable vision of a new relationship between people and their technology.