When we make decisions, our thinking is informed by societal norms, 鈥済uardrails鈥 guiding our decisions, like the laws and rules that govern us. But what are good guardrails in today鈥檚 world of overwhelming information flows and increasingly powerful technologies, such as artificial intelligence? Based on the latest insights from the cognitive sciences, economics, and public policy, Guardrails offers a novel approach to shaping decisions by embracing human agency in its social context.
In this visionary book, Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Sch枚nberger show how the quick embrace of technological solutions can lead to results we don鈥檛 always want and explain how society itself can provide guardrails more suited to the digital age, ones that empower individual choice while accounting for the social good, encourage flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, and ultimately help us to make better decisions as we tackle the most daunting problems of our times, such as global injustice and climate change.
Whether we change jobs, buy a house, or quit smoking, thousands of decisions large and small shape our daily lives. Decisions drive our economies, seal the fate of democracies, create war or peace, and affect the well-being of our planet. Guardrails challenges the notion that technology should step in where our own decision making fails, laying out a surprisingly human-centered set of principles that can create new spaces for better decisions and a more equitable and prosperous society.
Urs Gasser is professor of public policy, governance, and innovative technology and dean of the School of Social Sciences and Technology at the Technical University of Munich. His books include (with John Palfrey) Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age. Viktor Mayer-Sch枚nberger is professor of internet governance and regulation at the University of Oxford. His books include Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (Princeton). Anand Jagatia is an award-winning science journalist and multimedia producer.
鈥淏alancing individual freedoms and the common good is ever more critical in the velocity of today鈥檚 technologically mediated world. Gasser and Mayer-Sch枚nberger brilliantly illustrate that it is the ballast of societal guardrails, in their variety and agility鈥攁nd not brittle technology鈥攖hat can protect what we hold most dear: our rights, liberties, and values. This indispensable book is an essential primer for our uncertain present and for achieving a just, democratic future.鈥濃擜londra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
鈥淲ise and fluent, erudite yet practical, this remarkable book provides us with a greatly heightened appreciation of the social context in which decisions are and ought to be made in the digital age. As we move into the second quarter of the twenty-first century, an era of uncertainty and fragility, Guardrails should move to the top of the pile on all bedside tables.鈥濃擱ichard Susskind, author of Tomorrow鈥檚 Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future
鈥淲here and how society ought to shape our individual decisions is a crucial issue for good governance as well as social justice and human well-being. Clear-eyed and gripping, this book offers a much-needed strategy to guide humanity鈥檚 future.鈥濃擠arren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation
鈥淎 delightfully wide-ranging and eminently readable exploration of how laws, norms, technology, and our own thinking guide our behavior, and how we should think about it.鈥濃擬ark Lemley, Stanford University