Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture. Now, in his first book, written more than two decades after the web was created, Lanier offers this provocative and cautionary look at the way it is transforming our lives for better and for worse.

The current design and function of the web have become so familiar that it is easy to forget that they grew out of programming decisions made decades ago. The web’s first designers made crucial choices (such as making one’s presence anonymous) that have had enormous—and often unintended—consequences. What’s more, these designs quickly became “locked in,” a permanent part of the web’s very structure.

Lanier discusses the technical and cultural problems that can grow out of poorly considered digital design and warns that our financial markets and sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter are elevating the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals.

Lanier also shows:

How 1960s antigovernment paranoia influenced the design of the online world and enabled trolling and trivialization in online discourse

How file sharing is killing the artistic middle class;

How a belief in a technological “rapture” motivates some of the most influential technologists

Why a new humanistic technology is necessary.

Controversial and fascinating, You Are Not a Gadget is a deeply felt defense of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.

傑倫•拉尼爾（Jaron Lanier）

計算機科學傢、作麯傢、視覺藝術傢和作傢。

傑倫•拉尼爾在20世紀80年代最先提齣“虛擬現實”的概念，是全球計算機領域的先驅者。他纔華齣眾，還是一位多纔多藝的音樂傢，擅長古典和現代等多種音樂風格，曾與小野洋子、史坦利•喬丹和喬治•剋林頓等著名音樂人閤作演齣。

傑倫•拉尼爾所獲贊譽無數。他被《時代》周刊評為2010年度“全球最有影響力人物”；《大不列顛百科全書》將他收錄為曆史上最偉大的發明傢之一。