As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation and that more data is enough to help us build a better world.
In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we’re living in a new Dark Age.
From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.
About the Author
James Bridle is a literary editor, technologist, writer, journalist, and visual artist. He writes for Guardian, Observer, Wired, Frieze, Atlantic and many other publications.
About the Publisher
Launched as a paperback New Left Books imprint at the end of the seventies, Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world, publishing 100 books a year. Since 2000, Verso has made landmark interventions in international politics, the Middle East and South America, whilst also establishing a growing list of fiction, biography and memoir titles.
