Can we reclaim control of our economy to make it work for everyone? What needs to be understood about the big tech platforms before that could even be attempted?

Tim Wu has a plan. Wu, a scholar and the former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality,” has examined the rise of “platform power” and the risks and rewards of working within such systems. It’s a topic he explores in his latest book The Age of Extraction.

Drawing on lessons from recent history—from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements—Wu says the internet that was promised to be the provider of widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s instead created new economic classes and helped spread autocracy. Wu envisions a future in which tech advances can serve the greatest possible good, and he offers proposals for making a more balanced economy.

Wu has been named one of Scientific American’s 50 people of the year (2006), one of the “Politico 50” (2014 and 2015), one of The National Law Journal’s “America’s 100 Most Influential Lawyers” (2013) and one of 02138 magazine’s 100 most influential Harvard graduates (2007). Put him on your list of people to see in-person when he returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs in November.

This program is supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund.

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