Bring Back Innovation That Empowers, Rather Than Extracts: The Resonant Computing Manifesto

Say That Again

from the i-hope-this-resonates-with-you dept

Everyone’s pissed at the tech industry. And for good reason. The term enshittification is super popular for many valid reasons. Companies that used to provide real value, are now focused on extracting more value from users, rather than improving their products and services. People used to be excited by new innovations. There was a time when many people felt more fulfilled after using new innovations that helped them do new things, communicate with new people, create new wonderful creations.

That feels like an unfortunately rare experience, so much so that some have forgotten about it entirely.

Remember when you’d use something new and feel… good? Empowered, even? When tech made you feel like you could do more, create more, connect more meaningfully?

Yeah, that’s mostly gone. We’ve replaced it with engagement metrics, growth hacks, and AI slop. The tech industry spent the last decade optimizing for shareholder value and calling it innovation.

But, it doesn’t need to be that way.

We can live in a world where technology works for us, not against us. Where we get value from it, rather than having it extract value from us.

So a group of us—organized by entrepreneur Alex Komoroske, who wrote for us this summer about why centralized AI isn’t inevitable—decided to articulate what the alternative actually looks like. Not just “tech should be better” hand-waving that we sometimes see, but actual principles for building technology that works for people instead of extracting from them.

We’re calling it the Resonant Computing Manifesto, and it’s an attempt to reclaim what innovation should mean:

We call this quality resonance. It’s the experience of encountering something that speaks to our deeper values. It’s a spark of recognition, a sense that we’re being invited to lean in, to participate. Unlike the digital junk food of the day, the more we engage with what resonates, the more we’re left feeling nourished, grateful, alive. As individuals, following the breadcrumbs of resonance helps us build meaningful lives. As communities, companies, and societies, cultivating shared resonance helps us break away from perverse incentives, and play positive-sum infinite games together.

For decades, technology has required standardized solutions to complex human problems. In order to scale software, you had to build for the average user, sanding away the edge cases. In many ways, this is why our digital world has come to resemble the sterile, deadening architecture that Alexander spent his career pushing back against.

That word—resonance—is doing real work here. It’s the opposite of what we’ve got now: software that leaves you feeling depleted, manipulated, or just vaguely dirty. Resonant computing is technology that makes you feel more capable, more connected, more like yourself.

This matters because the current narrative is stuck between two equally bankrupt positions: either all tech is inevitably corrupting, or we should just accelerate harder into whatever the VCs are funding this quarter. Both are bullshit. Tech can be good. It requires building for people rather than metrics. And to get there, we need to call it out and demand it.

I know that some of the more cynical among you will say that techies have always cloaked their efforts in the language of “empowering people” and “changing the world.” We don’t deny that. But we’d like to make it real, and to be able to use this conversation to remind everyone that technology can be good. If it follows certain principles.

So what does that actually mean? The manifesto lays out five principles:

1. Private: In the era of AI, whoever controls the context holds the power. While data often involves multiple stakeholders, people must serve as primary stewards of their own context, determining how it’s used.
2. Dedicated: Software should work exclusively for you, ensuring contextual integrity where data use aligns with your expectations. You must be able to trust there are no hidden agendas or conflicting interests.
3. Plural: No single entity should control the digital spaces we inhabit. Healthy ecosystems require distributed power, interoperability, and meaningful choice for participants.
4. Adaptable: Software should be open-ended, able to meet the specific, context-dependent needs of each person who uses it.
5. Prosocial: Technology should enable connection and coordination, helping us become better neighbors, collaborators, and stewards of shared spaces, both online and off.

Notice what’s not in there: no handing over all your data to billionaires, no single solution from a centralized provider, no tech bro buzzwords. What we have here are requirements that take us away from the current ecosystem. Privacy doesn’t mean Mark Zuckerberg has to better protect your data. It means systems where you control your own data. Plural means more than “sprinkle in a few more competitors,” it’s about interoperability and the ability to actually leave with ease.

The “dedicated” principle is particularly important in the age of AI. Your AI tools shouldn’t have dual loyalty to you and to a giant company. It should work for you, period. That seems obvious, but look around: how many products actually meet that bar?

This is also why we’re not just throwing this out there and walking away. Unlike the endless parade of “ethics frameworks” that companies sign onto and promptly ignore, this is meant to be a starting point. It’s kicking off a conversation as well as guidelines for building actual systems. There’s a collaborative doc where people can contribute ideas, and we’ll be talking through what this looks like in practice.

We launched this manifesto yesterday afternoon at Wired’s Big Interview event in San Francisco, and Steven Levy wrote a lovely profile about it, which we spoke about on stage:

Humanity is the glue of the five principles of resonant computing listed in the document. It politely demands that users have control of their tech tools, which should promote social value and true connection. It is, natch, resonant of the idealism that once oozed from every pore of the creators of the early microcomputer revolution and the internet boom, when what was good for the world seemed more important than building scale and maximizing the stock price. “I certainly subscribe to the principles,” says Tim O’Reilly, an early signer who has been urging those same values for years.

Komoroske and his coauthors know that their campaign is only a tiny step toward actually fixing Silicon Valley. “I am under no illusion that some manifesto will magically solve this at all,” he says. (Komoroske himself has cofounded a startup called Common Tools, still in stealth, which presumably will be resonant AF.) Instead, the authors’ goal is to energize and support a new generation of tech professionals who want to be proud of their creations. “When they’re building things, they might start taking these ideas into account,” says Masnick. “And it becomes a tool for people within companies to push back on some of the incentives.”

If nothing else, a few thousand signers would indicate to the idealists that they’re not alone—and some of them might willingly pass on opportunities to make VP and instead make the software that they’d want to use themselves.

There’s the ability to sign onto the manifesto if you’d like. We’ve been thrilled to have folks like Tim O’Reilly, Bruce Schneier, Kevin Kelly and many, many others already sign on. The reaction at the Wired event yesterday from many enthusiastic folks suggested that many more would like to sign on as well.

I’ll have Alex on the Techdirt podcast later today to dig into what this looks like in practice—how you actually build systems that meet these principles, what the tradeoffs are, and why we think this is both necessary and possible.

This was a true group effort, and I want to credit everyone who contributed: Maggie Appleton, Samuel Arbesman, Daniel Barcay, Rob Hardy, Aishwarya Khanduja, Geoffrey Litt, Brendan McCord, Bernhard Seefeld, Ivan Vendrov, Amelia Wattenberger, Zoe Weinberg, and Simon Willison. Our regular meetings brainstorming and discussing all this have been a highlight of this year.

Look, I know manifestos are cheap. They seem to come out every few months. But here’s the thing: we’re at a genuinely weird moment where the biggest players in tech have decided that user empowerment was actually the problem all along. That’s not inevitable. It’s a choice. And we can make different choices.

This feeling has “resonated” with many of the people we’ve shared it with so far, and we hope that it resonates with you as well.

Resonant computing is possible—we’ve experienced it before. The question is whether we’re willing to build it, and whether users will demand it. That’s what this is about: creating a shared language and vision for what better looks like, so we can actually build toward it instead of just complaining about enshittification.

If that resonates with you, and you think that matters, sign the manifesto. Join the conversation. Build a better, more resonant, world.

Filed Under: decentralized, empowerment, innovation, interoperable, plural, privacy, prosocial, resonance, resonant computing

Fascism For First Time Founders

Innovation

from the democracy-is-actually-important-for-innovation dept

Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train. Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation.

The logic might seem compelling at first: regulations slow us down, politicians don’t understand tech, wouldn’t it be better if someone who “gets it” could just cut through all the bureaucratic nonsense? But this line of thinking leads directly to the neoreactionary conclusion that what we really need is a “tech-friendly” strongman to sweep away democratic institutions and let the smart people (spoiler: they mean themselves) run things.

It seems like it might be useful to point out how incredibly dangerous and counterproductive that utter nonsense is. The idea of a benevolent dictator to get past the nonsense is appealing for those who can’t think more than a step or two ahead and consider what happens next.

Look, I get it. You’re building something cool. You heard the stories some are telling of the Biden admin looking to regulate crypto or AI (not that any such regulations ever actually appeared) and you think “ugh, too heavy handed, just let me code.” And then you hear Trump promising to “cut red tape” and “unleash American innovation,” and you think: Finally, someone who gets it, someone who will stay out of my way.

But before you start crafting your “make coding great again” hat, let’s have a little chat about why embracing fascism is probably the worst possible business strategy for anyone actually trying to build something innovative.

I know, I know. “Fascism” sounds hyperbolic. You’re not goose-stepping around your WeWork space. You just want lower taxes and fewer forms to fill out. And trust me, I’ve spent 25 years calling out idiotic tech policy proposals by clueless politicians, so the idea of getting an administration that will “free up” tech sounds appealing.

But here’s the thing: there’s a reason this “tech-friendly dictator” fantasy has been bubbling up in VC circles and startup accelerators for years. It’s not just about cutting red tape—it’s about the fundamental belief that techbros like themselves shouldn’t have to deal with the messy compromises that democracy itself requires. They’d rather sweep away all those pesky democratic institutions and let the “smart people” (spoiler: they mean themselves) run things.

The basic pitch is seductive: democracy is messy, slow, and often staffed by people who don’t understand technology. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone in charge who just… gets it?

No. No, it would not.

The Dictator’s Innovation Trap

Here’s what the “just let tech bros run everything” crowd fundamentally misunderstands about how innovation actually works: It requires exactly the kind of chaotic, unpredictable, open ecosystem that authoritarianism systematically destroys.

Real innovation happens when companies have to compete on merit, not on who can kiss the leader’s ass most effectively. In a functioning democracy with actual rule of law, the best products have the opportunity to win. In an authoritarian system, the company that makes the dictator happy wins—and that’s it.

Think that sounds far-fetched? Look at how quickly Elon Musk’s companies started getting favorable treatment once he became Trump’s Number One donor. And then look at how quickly Trump turned on Elon and threatened to pull all the subsidies his businesses get from the federal government as punishment over Elon criticizing his budget plan. That’s not competition driving innovation—that’s cronyism driving mediocrity.

This isn’t theoretical. When political favor becomes more important than product quality, innovation dies. The companies that survive aren’t the ones building the best, most innovative products—they’re the ones best at navigating the whims of whoever’s in power.

The Brain Drain You’re Not Thinking About

Want to know what really kills innovation? Brain drain. And nothing drives brain drain like encroaching fascism.

And the brain drain has already started.

Foreign students are looking to study elsewhere rather than deal with visa uncertainty and hostile rhetoric. Many of America’s smartest researchers are being wooed to other countries that offer more stable funding and less political interference. International PhD students, postdocs, and visiting researchers—the people who often go on to start the most innovative companies—are increasingly choosing Canada, the UK, or other destinations over the US.

This isn’t just the H-1B visa holders that the Trump inner circle loves to demonize. It’s the entire global talent pool that has always seen America as the place where you could build something amazing without worrying about arbitrary political interference.

The United States became the global innovation leader in part because we attracted the best and brightest from around the world. They came here because we had something other countries didn’t: a stable, democratic system where merit mattered more than connections, where you could build something without worrying that tomorrow’s political winds might destroy everything you’ve worked for.

But that’s been trashed. In mere months.

History shows us what happens when countries drive away intellectual talent. When authoritarian regimes came to power in the past, they didn’t just drive out targeted groups—they drove out anyone who valued intellectual freedom and scientific integrity. The result? Countries like the United States got Einstein, Fermi, and a whole generation of brilliant minds who helped build the post-war economy.

You think the smartest engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world are going to want to move to a country run by a dictator? Even a supposedly “tech-friendly” one?

The Infrastructure You Take For Granted

You know what else makes innovation possible? Boring stuff like universities, research institutions, and a functioning legal system.

You know what authoritarian regimes love to do? Gut all of those things.

Think about where most breakthrough technologies actually come from. Not from some genius in a garage (though that’s a nice story). They come from decades of basic research funded by institutions that operate independently of political pressure. The internet you’re using to read this? That was DARPA. The GPS in your phone? Military research. The algorithms powering AI? University research.

Here’s how the ecosystem actually works: government funds basic research that has no obvious commercial application. Universities and research institutions build on that work, training graduate students who become the next generation of researchers and entrepreneurs. Some of those students go on to start companies that turn basic research into products. Others stay in academia and continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Yes, eventually the private markets and companies take over the commercialization, but so much of the core infrastructure of innovation comes from elsewhere.

And none of this happens overnight. The internet took decades to go from ARPANET to the web. GPS took years of satellite launches and signal processing advances. The machine learning techniques powering today’s AI boom are built on decades of research in statistics, computer science, and neuroscience.

Fascists hate independent institutions. They see them as threats to their authority. So they defund them, politicize them, or just straight-up destroy them. And when they do, innovation dies—not immediately, but over the course of years as the pipeline of basic research dries up.

The Trust Problem

Here’s something else you might not have considered: innovation requires trust. Not just between individuals, but institutional trust. People need to believe that contracts will be enforced, that property rights will be protected, that the rules won’t change arbitrarily based on the whims of whoever’s in charge.

Building a startup requires long-term thinking. You’re asking employees to bet their careers on your vision. You’re asking investors to put money into something that might not pay off for years. You’re asking customers to trust that your product will be supported and improved over time.

None of that works in an environment where the rules change based on political caprice.

You think venture capitalists are going to invest in your startup if they’re worried that next month’s political purge might decide that your industry is suddenly “unpatriotic”? You think customers are going to adopt your product if they’re concerned that using it might put them on some government enemies list? Biden may not have been the most tech friendly president, but he didn’t threaten to deport a tech CEO over a policy disagreement.

Authoritarian systems are fundamentally unpredictable. The rules change based on the leader’s mood, personal vendettas, or political needs. That’s the opposite of the stable, predictable environment that innovation requires. When political favor matters more than legal precedent, no one can plan for the future.

The Historical Precedent

Here’s the thing about fascism: it never ends well. Not for the countries that embrace it, not for the people who live under it, and definitely not for the entrepreneurs who think they can ride the tiger.

Every authoritarian regime in history has eventually turned on the business community that initially supported it. The oligarchs who think they can control the dictator always end up learning the hard way that the dictator controls them.

You think the tech bros who are currently sucking up to Trump are going to maintain their influence indefinitely? Just ask Elon Musk. One day you’re the world’s richest man and Trump’s “first buddy,” the next day you’re being publicly humiliated and threatened with the destruction of your business empire because you criticized his “one big beautiful bill” for being a disaster.

And that’s just the beginning. Historical patterns are clear: authoritarian leaders use business elites to consolidate power, then systematically eliminate them as independent actors. The German industrialists who bankrolled Hitler’s rise thought they could control him. The Russian oligarchs who backed Putin in the early days thought they could maintain their influence through personal relationships.

They were all wrong. Dictators don’t share power. They accumulate it. And when they’re done using you, they discard you—or worse.

The Choice

So here’s your choice: you can embrace the chaotic, messy, sometimes frustrating democratic system that has produced more innovation than any other system in human history. Or you can bet your company’s future on a dictator who eagerly promises to make everything simple and efficient mainly by ignoring the nuances and complexities of reality.

One of these has a track record of creating the richest, most innovative economy in human history. The other has a track record of destroying everything it touches—including those who support it early on.

Democracy isn’t perfect. It’s slow, it’s messy, it’s often staffed by people who don’t understand technology. But it’s also the only system that has consistently created the conditions for innovation to flourish: open competition, institutional independence, predictable rules, and the freedom to build something without worrying about political retaliation.

Fascism is really good at one thing: making everything worse.

If you’re really building something that matters, something that could change the world, you want that world to be one where merit matters more than loyalty, where competition drives progress, where the best ideas win regardless of who came up with them.

You want democracy. You just might not realize it yet.

Filed Under: competition, democracy, fascism, innovation, vcs

AMC’s Latest Innovation: More Ads At The Movie Theater

Movie Industry

from the this-one-goes-to-11 dept

During pandemic lockdowns, you might recall how AMC executives threw a temper tantrum because companies like Comcast/NBC began experimenting with more innovative movie release windows. AMC execs were mad because the pandemic highlighted how the 90-day gap between the time a movie appears in theaters and its streaming or DVD release was exposed as both dated and stupid.

Comcast (successfully) experimented with not only shortening the window, but eliminating it entirely. At the time, AMC Theatre CEO Adam Aron pouted incessantly, insisting that Comcast films would never again appear in AMC theaters, before ultimately having to retract the silly threat.

In the years since, AMC execs have had a lot of time to think about how they’d like to adjust to the modern film audience. One big idea was to start charging customers even more money if they wanted better seats. And more recently they’ve taken to pushing even more real-world advertisements on paying customers before the movie starts.

Even before COVID, other major theater companies, like Cinemark Theatres and Regal Cinemas, had been loading up to five minutes of ads ahead of movies. AMC had initially rejected joining the effort, correctly noting that they worried consumers would “react quite negatively to the concept.”

That was then, this is now. AMC, struggling to make as much money as it would like, has reversed course and will be adding more ads. Which is tricky because it already runs 25-30 minutes of trailers, ads, and assorted gibberish before movies begin already:

“The deal takes effect July 1, just in time for Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth and DC Studios/Warner Bros.’ Superman. AMC is already known for its lengthy preshow time, which runs 25 to 30 minutes, so it will have to reconfigure its lineup — which includes the famous Nicole Kidman spot promoting the “magic” of moviegoing — to allow for the new ads without going over the half-hour mark.”

Annoyed customers are still going to the movies, but they’re showing up later to accommodate for all the ads. One recent industry study found that only 60 percent of moviegoers this year were in their seats when trailers started playing. In NY and LA,  42 percent of moviegoers were in their seats in time to see every trailer.

This is yet another enshittification cycle that shows no sign of relenting. To give Wall Street its expected impossibly growing quarterly returns, AMC can’t afford to actually provide things the audience wants (lower prices, smaller crowds, better quality films and food). So they’re on a path of a sort of brand cannibalization in which annoyances grow as the theater experience quality shrinks, driving annoyed users ultimately to other experiences (like piracy).

Once a company’s on this path there’s really no reversal if they want to avoid an investor revolt, so there’s simply no telling what bad idea (or eroded principle) comes next for AMC.

Filed Under: advertisements, competition, consumers, enshittification, film, innovation, movies, preshow, prices, theater
Companies: amc, cinemark, comcast, regal cinemas

‘Max’ Joins Innovative Streaming Trend Of Shoving More Ads Down Your Throat

Culture

from the brilliant-idea-boss dept

We’ve noted more than a few times that media and streaming execs are all out of original ideas. Now that the market has saturated and subscriber growth has slowed, streaming companies have decided to stop giving the public what it wants (few restrictions, low prices, better quality content) in order to provide Wall Street with the illusion of impossible, endless quarterly growth.

Instead they’ve started focusing on brand cannibalization efforts that have devastated the traditional cable sector: pointless and harmful mergers, price hikes, and the imposition of annoying new nickel-and-diming restrictions. Their latest big idea is the imposition of even more advertisements, or even higher fees to avoid them.

In early 2024, Amazon began charging Prime customers $3 extra every month just to avoid ads that didn’t previously exist. At the time, they promised they’d try to keep ads to a minimum; yet in less than 18 months they’ve doubled the amount of ads users have to deal with.

Warner Brothers Discovery’s “Max” has, of course, followed right along, stuffing fifty-percent more commercial breaks into each program in its ad-based tiers. We noted when this trend emerged that Wall Street demands for impossible quarterly revenue growth would mean these companies wouldn’t be able to help but push their luck, so this sort of thing is right on cue:

“A support page for Max’s Basic with Ads plan says to expect six minutes of ads per hour, a 50 percent jump. And despite its original promise not to show ads during HBO programming, Max has been breaking up HBO shows with commercials as well.”

Max originally promised “a commitment to the lowest commercial ad load in the streaming industry.” But, like Amazon, those promises were utterly worthless. Very cool. Very innovative.

 As Ars Technica notes, this is steadily eroding the value of streaming. And there’s more enshittification to come. Linear TV still reportedly shows 13 to 16 minutes of commercials per hour, so there’s still plenty of runway for these execs to make their services shittier and erode their own quality standards further. At which point you’ll absolutely see a surge in piracy that these execs will blame on everything but themselves.

By 2026 or so you should see a lot of resurgent industry whining about piracy, followed by terrible industry ideas to try and “fix” a problem they created; like lobbying Congress for a ban on VPNs, or working even harder to kick poor people off of their broadband connections for downloading a TV episode.

Filed Under: advertisements, competition, fees, growth, hbo, hbo max, innovation, max, streaming, tv, video
Companies: warner bros. discovery

The Way Forward For AI: Learning From The Elephant & The Blind Men

Policy

from the a-new-vision dept

This series of posts explores how we can rethink the intersection of AI, creativity, and policy. From examining outdated regulatory metaphors to questioning copyright norms and highlighting the risks of stifling innovation, each post addresses a different piece of the AI puzzle. Together, they advocate for a more balanced, forward-thinking approach that acknowledges the potential of technological evolution while safeguarding the rights of creators and ensuring AI’s development serves the broader interests of society.

Let’s start with the original metaphor of the six blind men and the elephant. In this classic Indian tale, each man feels a different part of the elephant—one touches the tusk and declares it’s a spear, another grabs the tail and swears it’s a rope, and so on. Each is convinced they’ve got the whole picture, but in reality, they’re missing the full scope of the elephant because they refuse to share their perspectives.

Now, let’s apply this to AI regulation. Imagine six policymakers, each with a firm grip on their own slice of the AI puzzle. One is fixated on privacy, another sees only risks, while yet another is laser-focused on copyright. But as a result, their narrow focus is leaving the broader picture woefully incomplete. And that, my friends, is where the trouble begins.

Accepting the Challenge of Innovation

AI is so much more than just a collection of legal headaches. It’s a powerful, transformative force. It’s revolutionizing industries, supercharging creativity, driving research, and solving problems we couldn’t have even dreamed of a few years ago. It’s not just a new avenue for academics to write articles—it’s a tool that could unlock incredible potential, pushing the boundaries of human creativity and innovation.

But what happens when we regulate it with tunnel vision? When we obsess over the tail and ignore the rest of the elephant? We end up stifling the very innovation we should be encouraging. The piecemeal approach doesn’t just miss the bigger picture—it risks handcuffing the future of AI, limiting its capacity to fuel new discoveries and reshape industries for the better.

By focusing solely on risks and potential copyright or privacy violations, we’re leaving research, creativity, and innovation stranded. Think of the breakthroughs AI could help us achieve: revolutionary advances in healthcare, educational tools that adapt to individual learners, creative platforms that democratize access to artistic expression. AI isn’t just a regulatory problem to be tackled—it’s a massive opportunity. And unless policymakers start seeing the whole elephant, we’re going to end up trampling the very future we’re trying to protect.

So, What’s the Way Forward?

We need to rethink our approach. AI, especially generative AI, can offer immense societal benefits—but only if we create policies that reflect its potential. Over-focusing on copyright claims or letting certain stakeholders dominate the conversation means we end up putting brakes on the very technology that could drive our next era of progress.

Imagine if, in the age of the Gutenberg Press, we had decided to regulate printing so heavily to protect manuscript copyists that books remained rare and knowledge exclusive. We wouldn’t be where we are today. The same logic applies to AI. If we make it impossible for AI to learn, to explore vast amounts of data, to create based on the expressions of humanity, we will end up in a data winter—a future where AI, stifled and starved of quality input, fails to reach its true potential.

AI chatbots, creative tools, and generative models have shown that they can be both collaborators and catalysts for human creativity. They help artists brainstorm, assist writers in overcoming creative blocks, and enable non-designers to visualize their ideas. By empowering people to create in new ways, AI is democratizing creativity. But if we let fears over copyright overshadow everything else, we risk shutting down this vibrant new avenue of cultural expression before it even gets started.

Seeing the Whole Elephant

The task of policymaking is challenging, especially with emerging technologies that shift as rapidly as AI. But the answer isn’t to clamp down with outdated regulations to preserve the status quo for a few stakeholders. Instead, it’s to foster an environment where innovation, creativity, and research can flourish alongside reasonable protections. We must encourage fair compensation for creators (and let’s not forget they should not be equated to the creative industry) while ensuring that AI can access the data it needs to evolve, innovate, and inspire.

The metaphor of the blind men and the elephant serves as a clear warning: if we only see a part of the elephant, we can only come up with partial solutions. It’s time to step back and view AI for what it truly is—a powerful, transformative force that, if used wisely, can uplift our societies, enhance our creativity, and tackle challenges that once seemed impossible.

The alternative is to regulate AI into irrelevance by focusing only on a single aspect. We need to see the whole elephant—understand AI in its entirety—and allow it to shape a future where human creativity, innovation, and progress thrive together.

Caroline De Cock is a communications and policy expert, author, and entrepreneur. She serves as Managing Director of N-square Consulting and Square-up Agency, and Head of Research at Information Labs. Caroline specializes in digital rights, policy advocacy, and strategic innovation, driven by her commitment to fostering global connectivity and positive change.

Filed Under: ai, copyright, creativity, creativity and ai, innovation, llms

Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)

Techdirt

from the it's-the-only-real-story dept

While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold — a playbook we’re all too familiar with. We’ve seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and legal workarounds, and how smoke and mirrors claims about “innovation” can mask old-fashioned power grabs. It’s a playbook we watched Musk perfect at Twitter, and now we’re seeing it deployed on a national scale.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a few people reach out about our coverage these days. Most have been very supportive of what we’ve been covering (in fact, people have been strongly encouraging us to keep it up), but a few asked questions regarding what Techdirt is focused on these days, and how much we were leaning into covering “politics.”

When the very institutions that made American innovation possible are being systematically dismantled, it’s not a “political” story anymore. It’s a story about whether the environment that enabled all the other stories we cover will continue to exist.

We’ve always covered the intersection of technology, innovation, and policy (27+ years and counting). Sometimes that meant writing about patents or copyright, sometimes about content moderation, sometimes about privacy. But what happens when the fundamental systems that make all of those conversations possible start breaking down? When the people dismantling those systems aren’t even pretending to replace them with something better?

But there’s more to it than that.

It’s difficult to explain how much it matters that we’ve seen this movie before. (Well, technically, we’ve seen the beta version — what’s happening now is way more troubling.) When you’ve spent years watching how some tech bros break the rules in pursuit of personal and economic power at the expense of safety and user protections, all while wrapping themselves in the flag of “innovation,” you get pretty good at spotting the pattern.

Take two recent stories that perfectly illustrate the difference in coverage. First, there’s the TikTok ban. Political reporters focused on which party would benefit from the ban, and who would get credit for being “tough on China” — the usual horse-race nonsense. Tech and law reporters, meanwhile, were highlighting how the legislation would actually weaken security protections and create dangerous precedents for government intervention in private companies. (Not to mention how it would undermine decades of US work promoting an open internet.)

Or take what’s happening at the FCC right now. The traditional media keeps repeating the claims that Brendan Carr is a “free speech warrior,” because that’s what Donald Trump called him. But if you’ve been covering tech policy for a while, you know full well that Carr isn’t actually a believer in free speech. Quite the opposite.

Carr made it clear he wants to be America’s top censor, but cleverly wrapped it in misleading language about free speech. Inexperienced political reporters just repeated those misleading claims. Then he started doing exactly what he promised: going after companies whose speech he seemed to feel was too supportive of Democrats. And now some of those same media companies who failed to cover Carr accurately are falling in line, caving to threats from the administration.

This is the kind of thing tech and law reporters spot immediately, because we’ve seen this all play out before. When someone talks about “free speech” while actively working to control speech, that’s not a contradiction or a mistake — it’s the point. It’s about consolidating power while wrapping it in the language of freedom as a shield to fool the gullible and the lazy.

This is why it’s been the tech and legal press that have been putting in the work, getting the scoops, and highlighting what’s actually going on, rather than just regurgitation administration propaganda without context or analysis (which hasn’t stopped the administration from punishing them).

Connecting these dots is basically what we do here at Techdirt.

One of the craziest bits about covering the systematic dismantling of democracy is this: the people doing the dismantling frequently tell you exactly what they’re going to do. They’re almost proud of it. They just wrap it in language that makes it sound like the opposite. (Remember when Musk said he was buying Twitter to protect free speech? And then banned journalists and sued researchers for calling out his nonsense? Same playbook.)

Good reporters can parse that. Bad reporters fail at it time and time again.

But what’s happening now is even more extreme and more terrifying. Something that even experts in democratic collapse didn’t see coming. Normally when democracies fall apart, there’s also a playbook. A series of predictable steps involving the military, or the courts, or sometimes both.

But what’s happening in the US right now is some sort of weird hybrid of the kind of power grabs we’ve seen in the tech industry, combined with a more traditional collapse of democratic institutions.

The destruction is far more systematic and dangerous than many seem to realize. Even Steven Levitsky, the author of How Democracies Die — who has literally written the book on how democracies collapse — admits the speed and scope of America’s institutional collapse has exceeded his worst predictions. And his analysis points to something we’ve been specifically warning about: the unprecedented concentration of political, economic, and technological power in the hands of Elon Musk and his circle of loyal hatchet men as they dismantle democratic guardrails.

We’re pretty screwed. A couple of things are a little worse than I anticipated. One is that while we knew the Republicans would not put up many obstacles, they have been even weaker than I thought. That the Congress is basically shutting itself down in the wake of the executive branch usurping its power is also really stunning. The Republican abdication has been worse than I expected, and I thought it would be bad.

The second thing I didn’t anticipate was the role of Musk. I don’t think anybody quite could have anticipated it. That article drew on 20 years of research on competitive authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world. The kinds of stuff we predicted, a lot of which has come to pass, are strategies that have been carried out in literally dozens of other cases. But Musk is pretty new. This is something that I don’t really have a model to understand. There’s a sort of technological frontier element to this that’s a little frightening. We don’t know what he’s going to do with data. And frankly, at least in democracies, I’ve never seen a concentration of political, economic, and media power as vast as this.

This is why tech journalism’s perspective is so crucial right now. We’ve spent decades documenting how technology and entrepreneurship can either strengthen or undermine democratic institutions. We understand the dangers of concentrated power in the digital age. And we’ve watched in real-time as tech leaders who once championed innovation and openness now actively work to consolidate control and dismantle the very systems that enabled their success.

I know that some folks in the comments will whine that this is “political” or that it’s an overreaction. And it is true that there have been times in the past when people have overreacted to things happening in DC.

This is not one of those times.

If you do not recognize that mass destruction of fundamental concepts of democracy and the US Constitution happening right now, you are either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. I can’t put it any clearer than that.

This isn’t about politics — it’s about the systematic dismantling of the very infrastructure that made American innovation possible. For those in the tech industry who supported this administration thinking it would mean less regulation or more “business friendly” policies: you’ve catastrophically misread the situation (which many people tried to warn you about). While overregulation (which, let’s face it, we didn’t really have) can be bad, it’s nothing compared to the destruction of the stable institutional framework that allowed American innovation to thrive in the first place.

There’s something important to understand about innovation. It doesn’t actually happen in a vacuum. The reason Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley wasn’t because a bunch of genius inventors happened to like California weather. It was because of a complex web of institutions that made innovation possible: courts that would enforce contracts (but not non-competes, allowing ideas to spread quickly and freely across industries), universities that shared research, a financial system that could fund new ideas, and laws that let people actually try those ideas out. And surrounding it all: a fairly stable economy, stability in global markets and (more recently) a strong belief in a global open internet.

And now we’re watching Musk, Trump, and their allies destroy these foundations. They operate under the dangerous delusion of the “great man” theory of innovation — the false belief that revolutionary changes come solely from lone geniuses, rather than from the complex interplay of open systems, diverse perspectives, and stable institutions that actually drives progress.

The reality has always been much messier. Innovation happens when lots of different people can try lots of different ideas. When information flows freely. When someone can start a company without worrying that the government will investigate them for criticizing an oligarch. When diverse perspectives can actually contribute to the conversation. You know — all the things that are currently under attack.

But you need a stable economy and stable infrastructure to make that work. And you need an openness to ideas and collaboration and (gasp) diversity to actually getting the most out of people.

There are, of course, other stories happening in the world. And it has been frustrating that we haven’t been able to cover some of the stories we’d normally cover. I have about 700 tabs currently open, many of which contain stories I’d like to write about, some of which might seem closer to traditional Techdirt subject matter.

But right now, the story that matters most is how the dismantling of American institutions threatens everything else we cover. When the fundamental structures that enable innovation, protect civil liberties, and foster open dialogue are under attack, every other tech policy story becomes secondary.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just another political cycle or policy debate — it’s an organized effort to destroy the very systems that have made American innovation possible. Whether this is by design, or by incompetence, doesn’t much matter (though it’s likely a combination of both). Unlike typical policy fights where we can disagree on the details while working within the system, this attack aims to demolish the system itself.

Remember all those tech CEOs who thought they could control Trump? All those VCs who figured they could profit from chaos? All those business leaders who decided that “woke institutions” were a bigger threat than authoritarian power grabs? They’re learning a very expensive lesson about the difference between creative destruction and just plain destruction.

We’re going to keep covering this story because, frankly, it’s the only story that matters right now, and one that not everyone manages to see clearly. The political press may not understand what’s happening (or may be too afraid to say it out loud), but those of us who’ve spent decades studying how technology and power interact? We see it and we can’t look away.

So, here’s the bottom line: when WaPo’s opinion pages are being gutted and tech CEOs are seeking pre-approval from authoritarians, the line between “tech coverage” and “saving democracy” has basically disappeared. It’s all the same thing.

We’re going to keep doing this work because someone has to. Because understanding how technology and power interact isn’t just an academic exercise anymore — it’s about whether we’ll have an innovation economy left when this is all over.

If you think this kind of coverage matters — if you believe we need voices willing to connect these dots and call out these threats — then help us keep doing it. You can become a Friend of Techdirt, support us on Patreon, grab some merch, or even back our card game (while it’s still available for pre-order…)

The future of American innovation isn’t just another story we cover. It’s the story. And we’re going to keep telling it, whether the powers that be like it or not.

Filed Under: authoritarianism, coup, coverage, donald trump, elon musk, innovation, institutions, journalism, politics, techdirt

India Wants Wide Business Use Of Its Huge Aadhaar Biometric Database, Now With Facial Recognition

Privacy

from the ease-of-living dept

Techdirt has been writing about India’s huge Aadhaar database of biometrics, which assigns a unique 12-digit number to all Indian citizens, for a decade now. The system was introduced to make it easier for people in India to access key government services by authenticating their identity, but there were soon plans to allow businesses to deploy it in commercial applications. In an important ruling in 2018, the Indian Supreme Court placed restrictions on how businesses could use Aadhaar. Now the Indian government has introduced an amendment to the original law that unequivocally allows commercial applications of the Aadhaar system (found via TechCrunch). The press release for the “Notification of Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Amendment Rules, 2025” explains how Aadhaar authentication is being widened in order to enhance “ease of living” (emphasis in the original):

The amendment seeks to enhance the scope and utility of Aadhaar authentication to further promote good governance, social welfare, innovation, and knowledge dissemination allowing the usage of Aadhaar for improving service delivery and thereby enhancing ease of living for residents and enabling better access to various services for them. The amendment would help people seamlessly avail the services of e-commerce, travel, tourism, hospitality and health sector etc. being provided by entities other than government entities also.

The amendment enables both government and non-government entities to avail Aadhaar authentication service for providing various services in the public interest for related specific purposes like enablement of innovation, spread of knowledge, promoting ease of living of residents and enabling better access to services for them. This will help both the service providers as well as the service seekers to have trusted transactions.

Businesses that wish to deploy Aadhaar authentication have to apply “with the details of intended requirements to the concerned ministry or department of the Central or the State government”. The application is examined by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs the Aadhaar system. However, from the press release it is clear that the Indian government is keen to expand the use of Aadhaar as widely as possible, presumably in the hope that doing so will drive innovation and efficiency.

According to the Aadhaar Dashboard, over 1.4 billion people have been enrolled in the Aadhaar database. Around 100 million authentications take place each day, and in total 130 billion authentications have been carried out. Most authentications involve fingerprints, with a small number using iris biometrics. Aadhaar has also started using facial recognition (pdf) to authenticate people.

Assuming the latest expansion to business is not blocked by the Indian Supreme Court, it is likely to drive an even wider use of the Aadhaar system, potentially touching every aspect of life in India and beyond. There are clear advantages for users, but there is also a danger. The Aadhaar number could become a natural way to track people online, and to create consolidated databases that unify public and private information about them, even if the UIDAI insists that is not the aim. As it adds facial recognition to its Aadhaar system, India is carrying out an important digital and social experiment, one which the rest of the world would be wise to watch closely.

Follow me @glynmoody on Bluesky and on Mastodon.

Filed Under: aadhaar, authentication, biometrics, efficiency, facial recognition, identity, india, indian supreme court, innovation, uidai

Sonos Executives Pay The Price For Company’s Shitty, Anti-Consumer Policies

Failures

from the de-enshittification? dept

You might remember that Sonos was the golden child of “smart,” internet-connected home hardware a decade or so ago. But that reputation has been steadily tarnished by a long line of bone-headed decisions, ranging from their 2020-era choice to brick still useful speakers and hardware, to their choice last year to release an app update that made their speakers more buggy and way less useful. That rushed and buggy app alone cost the company an estimated $20-30 million in value.

A company with the scale and ad dominance of Meta/Facebook can be a dysfunctional asshole for a long while before the check finally comes due. Less so for specialized hardware vendors like Sonos, whose product quality and consumer-friendliness was the entire reason for their success.

Sonos executives are starting to truly feel the heat of a miserable few years. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has been forced to step down, followed by the announced departure of Sonos Chief Product Officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin. Both took a long time to truly own their poor choices, initially going so far as to try and claim their sloppy updates and more hostile treatment of workers were a form of bravery.

New interim Sonos CEO Tom Conrad is trying to strike all the right notes in a letter to employees, letting them know the company heard their concerns about Sonos’ steady drift toward enshittification:

“I’ve heard from many of you about your own frustrations about how far we’ve drifted from our shared ideals. There’s a tremendous amount of work in front of us, including what I’m sure will be some very challenging moments, decisions, and trade-offs, but I’m energized by the passion I see all around me for doing right by our customers and getting back to the innovation that is at the heart of Sonos’ incredible history.”

That’s of course bean counter speak for looming layoffs and greater hostility to remote work. But you’d also hope that somewhere in there is a genuine realization that the company had drifted too far afield from the sort of quality, values, and product innovation that brought the company success in the first place.

Filed Under: audio, consumers, enshittification, hardware, innovation, quality, smart home, smart speakers
Companies: sonos

There’s No Dancing Around It: Apple’s Vision Pro Was An Ugly Dud

Overhype

from the words-are-but-wind dept

When Apple unveiled its AR/VR Vision Pro headset early last year the product was met with just an absolute ocean of tech press hype. You couldn’t spend thirty seconds online without reading about how the expensive ($3,500-$4,600 depending on accessories) headset was going to revolutionize every industry in existence or change absolutely everything. Seriously: everything.

Less than a year later there’s ongoing gossip that Apple ended production of the headset due to “weak demand and customer dissatisfaction.” The Information was the first to suggest as much last October, noting that weak sales had component makers scaling back part production as early as last Spring, as soon as it became clear this wasn’t, as it turns out, anywhere close to a technological revolution.

For most people the product either was too expensive, wasn’t comfortable to wear, made them throw up, or just didn’t have enough compelling software to justify continued usage:

“Apple sold fewer than 500,000 units of the Vision Pro since launch. While many returned the product after experiencing headaches, vision issues, neck pain, and motion sickness, even the people who kept it are reportedly not using it as much as Apple expected, largely due to the lack of compelling apps and games.”

When bankers and VCs took over Silicon Valley they created a chasm between marketing and reality, or set decoration and genuine innovation. A lot of these folks no longer care if a tech product is genuinely good or if it actually improves anything so long as you can convince people that it does. And with an increasingly feckless, access-obsessed, badly-run technology press, that’s often within reach.

Seriously, the gushing press coverage of Vision Pro was just fucking silly. A lot of unskeptical gibberish by outlets trying to kiss the ring for access. Words and phrases like “home run” and “revolutionary” were bandied around like confetti. Several key influencers claimed Vision Pro was as transformative as the original iPhone:

“I truly believe this is a landmark breakthrough like the 1984 Macintosh and the 2007 iPhone.”

A lot of people wanted to believe Apple had created another revolutionary miracle. Instead they built a dud. And it was pretty clearly a dud to those paying attention. That price tag was absolutely silly. Steve Jobs never would have approved that ugly ass battery pack and comically short battery life. Outside of some initial impressive gimmickry, there was little genuinely evolutionary, useful software.

But for a product to truly succeed it genuinely needs to improve things. VR and AR is also a challenge because computing size and battery life aren’t anywhere near where they need to be to offer the kind of transformative, inobtrusive experiences companies are promising. Most people still simply don’t like strapping plastic to their faces. A ton of people still can’t use VR without throwing up.

I don’t hate VR. I have three different major headsets. But the tech just isn’t cooked enough to warrant the kind of hype Meta or Apple VR products receive. Maybe someday, somebody will develop the perfect, seamless, almost magical experience that matches the hype in this field, but if I had to wager, when that product comes it won’t come from Apple or Meta (Apple and Meta will probably buy them, though).

Apple die hards generally got defensive when anyone suggested Vision Pro was a dud from the start. They’d usually say something about how “this was just a prototype” and “prototypes are supposed to be expensive,” and something actually useful might be coming down the road several years from now.

And that might actually be true. Maybe Apple turns around and leverages the lessons of this dud to create something actually useful and affordable. But that still doesn’t mean this wasn’t a wildly misrepresented dud from the start. And it also doesn’t excuse a technology press that repeatedly tripped over its own ass to deliver gushing praise for an undercooked product.

Filed Under: augmented reality, headset, innovation, virtual reality, vision pro, vr
Companies: apple