Jaron Lanier: Technology, Consciousness & Humanism
Jaron Lanier is a renaissance man, and one of the most profoundly important thinkers of our age on the relationship of technology to humanity. He is a computer scientist, composer, artist, and…
Search
4 interviews · 11 quotes
Conversations
Jaron Lanier is a renaissance man, and one of the most profoundly important thinkers of our age on the relationship of technology to humanity. He is a computer scientist, composer, artist, and…
What 280 conversations with the world's leading thinkers reveal about our technological future
To learn more about how technology has stolen our attention; and what we can do to get it back, I spoke to James Williams (Writer & researcher on the philosophy and ethics…
In this interview I speak to Dr Leanne ten Brinke - an award-winning psychologist and associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab. Drawing…
From the archive
The future isn't written, and so whether it's too late to fix this is not determined but it has on many occasions this year in particular felt that we've crossed the point of no return. We need to be optimistic to do so, pessimism serves nothing.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
I do feel that there is less hope now than there has ever been during my lifetime and- it would appear- for centuries. When you speak to most young people, they don't have an articulate sense of the future, of what they're looking forward to.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Economics is like artificial intelligence, it's not really there… there's no physical invisible hand…. It's about people interacting with people against a social order, a set of ethics, principles and practices.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Technology isn't a 'thing,' it's a social structure that people act upon the universe through. The social structure has incentives, roles and governance which determine the meaning and effect of the technology, not the engineering itself.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Social media was kind-of created to destroy humanity, in a literal sense. The first notion of the implications of such networks was provided by B. F. Skinner who spoke of the dangers of people who- on networks- were too free, too creative and too uncontrolled.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Humans haven't been able to survive in any of our environments 'raw' – we've made fire, made shoes, made hunting tools… we've never had to experience being adapted to an environment 'as it is,' and so there's no sensible definition of people without technology.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Economics is like artificial intelligence, it's not really there… there's no physical invisible hand…. It's about people interacting with people against a social order, a set of ethics, principles and practices.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Technology isn't a 'thing,' it's a social structure that people act upon the universe through. The social structure has incentives, roles and governance which determine the meaning and effect of the technology, not the engineering itself.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
I actually think social media can be fine, and in fact if you look at the first year or two of any particular social media, they often start out quite charming before the stupid business model kicks in where companies can only make money by having third parties inject money into the system.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
There's no sensible definition of people without technology. Our relationship with technology is complex and helical. As technology changes over time, so do we, and we have a situation therefore where we develop technologies, adapt, and then need new technologies to solve the side-effects of the first.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media
Social media was kind-of created to destroy humanity, in a literal sense. The first notion of the implications of such networks was provided by B. F. Skinner who spoke of the dangers of people who- on networks- were too free, too creative and too uncontrolled.
— Jaron LanierPioneer of Virtual Reality & Critic of Social Media