How to Fix the Future

Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers of the Internet to our culture and society. His first book, The Cult of the Amateur, was published in 2007 and translated into sixteen languages. His most recent book, The Internet Is Not the Answer continued his argument, showing how the Internet, if left unchecked, is insidiously destructive to our economy and our world. His latest, How to Fix the Future, expands this further into a global search for tools that might aid us as we face a perilous digital future.

As consensus builds around the importance of making sure the Internet remains a force for good, we need a road map of what actions we can take?as individuals, businesses, and as a society?to ensure that the Internet works for us, and not the other way around. Keen identifies five broad strategies to tackle the digital future: competitive innovation, government regulation, self-regulation, social responsibility by business leaders, and education. Traveling the world in order to identify best (and worst) practices in these five areas, Keen moves from Estonia, where the co-founder of Skype and the forward-thinking president Toomas Ilves are forming a model for Internet digital governance, to Germany, whose automobile titans are acting carefully to navigate the future of self-driving cars, to Scandinavia, Korea, India, and, of course, Silicon Valley.

Based on research, analysis, interviews, and Keen’s own experience as an Internet entrepreneur, How to Fix the Future is a powerfully argued and deeply engaging book for anyone who is looking for solutions to the economic inequality, global monopolies, cultural decay, war on privacy, and individual alienation that the digital upheaval is causing.