Meganets

“A disturbing examination of how social media technology spun out of control and what it means for the future.”

“A deeply interesting book.” 

“Meganets will forever change the way you think about the digital world. It is an eye-opening account of the relationships we create––and which are often created for us––online. It is the foundational book explaining the sweeping social changes that created our present and will transform tomorrow. David Auerbach has written both a warning and a blueprint for a better future.”

“Auerbach has written a fascinating, mind-expanding book that is not about the future of technology but about the future of society. We are still early in our journey toward understanding how the interaction of data and computing are fundamentally changing our lives. Meganets gets us further down that road. Two important takeaways for me: First, the metaverse is not some future state—it is here now, expanding and evolving daily. And second, algorithms don’t run the world—they create a rich, sometimes productive, and sometimes toxic new ecosystem that is an organic interaction of humans and machines already well beyond any person, company, government, or algorithm’s control.”

“Auerbach’s Meganets warns the networked systems that channel our words, images, and ideas are already too complex for humans to govern, however we might try. A necessary book, bracing in places, but not without hope.”

“Auerbach is the opposite of a conspiracy theorist: he explains how there’s often ultimately no person, institution, or discernable group behind big systems and the events they shape. He’s interested in how to deal with that fact—building up responsive structures instead of tearing anything down.”

“Auerbach knows better than anyone that the very act of writing about technology is an assertion of the preeminence of the human. His signature command of conscience and fact make his work that rarest thing: indispensable.”

“How often do we hear people vainly protest—‘But I'm not on social media!’—as if the problems we confront in our new technological reality could be solved by individual lifestyle choices alone? In fact, the forces that shape our online experience jumped the fence long ago, and there is now no protective barrier between the digital and the ‘real,’ between our online experience and our experience of the entirety of social reality. Algorithms and gamification shape our newsfeeds, but they also shape our transportation routes, our credit ratings, our labor, and even our health. This new reality requires a big-picture thinker ready to take on the problem in all its complexity, and Auerbach proves himself more than up to the task. In stunning, lucid prose and with unsparing analytical acumen, Meganets reveals just how profoundly our world has been transformed over the past generation of technological innovation. Auerbach offers no easy answers, yet the depth of his expertise and the far-reaching scope of his vision already provide a model for the sort of thinking we will need if the beast we have summoned is ever to be tamed.”

“[P]erceptive and searing, and the unorthodox recommendations bring novel insights.”

“Meganets is a sobering read, but a deeply important one.”