The Redirect: Technology after Capitalism

Technology has rapidly transformed our world, and capitalism has accelerated the pace of innovation and economic activity along with it. While venture capitalists dream of unicorn startups, and concentrated wealth accumulates through IPOs, serious, even devastating consequences have taken shape: from the loss of privacy and lack of investment in workers to threats to democracy. Thorny issues such as the ethics of artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies conjure dystopian nightmares contrary to the utopian dreams of entrepreneurs.

Cities, Knowledge, and the Digital Age, a partnership between Public Books and SFMOMA’s Public Knowledge initiative, seeks to understand how technology has changed cities. This discussion explores how tech might be redirected beyond capitalism, towards an alternative future. Could new technologies, whether imagined or real, point to a shared future of economic cooperation and democratic decision making? Could new technologies be focused on addressing human needs and the greater threat of climate change? Or has history shown us that our faith in tech is misplaced — that its abuses and manipulations outweigh its potential to liberate? Referencing science fiction, art, design, and beyond, panelists investigate the possibilities of a new technological dawn.

Public Knowledge is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in partnership with the San Francisco Public Library. The project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in Public Knowledge do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.