The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future

This book teaches readers to evaluate the potential impact of any new technology by asking three simple questions. According to Vivek Wadhwa, it is up to everyone to choose how technology moves forward. Will our future be Star Wars or Mad Max? If we simply let change happen, we may give our vote to the dark side, which will steal our privacy and control everything by default. Technology is advancing faster than ever-but for better or for worse? On the one hand, astonishing technology developments such as personalized genomics, self-driving cars, drones, and artificial intelligence could make our lives healthier, safer, and easier. On the other hand, these very same technologies could raise the specter of a frightening and alienating future-eugenics, a jobless economy, a complete loss of privacy, and an ever-worsening spiral of economic inequality. How can we make appropriate decisions about whether and how to adopt new technologies? Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever propose that we ask three questions: Does the technology have the potential to benefit everyone equally? What are the risks and the rewards? Does the technology more strongly promote autonomy or independence? They subject a host of new and potential technologies to these questions, but ultimately it is up to the reader to make the final decision.

About the Author :
Alex Salkever is vice president of marketing communications at Mozilla. He was a technology editor of BusinessWeek, a regular science contributor to the Christian Science Monitor, and a contributor to The Immigrant Exodus. VIVEK WADHWA is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering at Silicon Valley. He is the co-author of Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech Is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain - and How to Fight Back; The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent; and Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology. He has held appointments at Duke University, Stanford Law School, Emory University, and Singularity University. ALEX SALKEVER is a writer, futurist, and technology leader. He has served as a senior executive at a number of Silicon Valley startups and as a senior leader at respected brands in technology, most recently at Mozilla, where he served as a vice president. James A. Gillies has been a familiar voice across BBC television and radio for nearly a quarter of a century. Trained at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire, he has worked as an actor, continuity announcer, program narrator, and newsreader. He lives with his wife and two Norwegian Forest cats in Kilbarchan, Scotland.