Jaron Lanier is the father of virtual reality and one of the world's most brilliant thinkers. "Who Owns the Future?" is his visionary reckoning with the most urgent economic and social trend of our age: the poisonous concentration of money and power in our digital networks.
Lanier has predicted how technology will transform our humanity for decades, and his insight has never been more urgently needed. He shows how Siren Servers, which exploit big data and the free sharing of information, led our economy into recession, imperiled personal privacy, and hollowed out the middle class. The networks that define our world--including social media, financial institutions, and intelligence agencies--now threaten to destroy it.
But there is an alternative. In this provocative, poetic, and deeply humane book, Lanier charts a path toward a brighter future: an information economy that rewards ordinary people for what they do and share on the web.

Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to bring about fairness and prosperity for all Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking-and pretty much all conventional thinking about markets, both for and against-on its head. The book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone. It shows how the emancipatory force of genuinely open, free, and competitive markets can reawaken the dormant nineteenth-century spirit of liberal reform and lead to greater equality, prosperity, and cooperation. Eric Posner and Glen Weyl demonstrate why private property is inherently monopolistic, and how we would all be better off if private ownership were converted into a public auction for public benefit. They show how the principle of one person, one vote inhibits democracy, suggesting instead an ingenious way for voters to effectively influence the issues that matter most to them. They argue that every citizen of a host country should benefit from immigration-not just migrants and their capitalist employers. They propose leveraging antitrust laws to liberate markets from the grip of institutional investors and creating a data labor movement to force digital monopolies to compensate people for their electronic data. Only by radically expanding the scope of markets can we reduce inequality, restore robust economic growth, and resolve political conflicts. But to do that, we must replace our most sacred institutions with truly free and open competition-Radical Markets shows how.

Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to achieve fairness and prosperity for all Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking on its head. With a new foreword by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier as well as a new afterword by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl, this provocative book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone. It shows how the emancipatory force of genuinely open, free, and competitive markets can reawaken the dormant nineteenth-century spirit of liberal reform and lead to greater equality, prosperity, and cooperation. Only by radically expanding the scope of markets can we reduce inequality, restore robust economic growth, and resolve political conflicts. But to do that, we must replace our most sacred institutions with truly free and open competition-Radical Markets shows how.

Social media is supposed to bring us together - but it is tearing us apart.

'A blisteringly good, urgent, essential read' Zadie Smith

The evidence suggests that social media is making us sadder, angrier, less empathetic, more fearful, more isolated and more tribal.

Jaron Lanier is the world-famous Silicon Valley scientist-pioneer who first alerted us to the dangers of social media. In this witty and urgent manifesto he explains why its toxic effects are at the heart of its design, and, in ten simple arguments, why liberating yourself from its hold will transform your life and the world for the better.

WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR

‘Informed, heartfelt and often entertaining ... a timely reminder that even if we can’t bring ourselves to leave social media altogether, we should always think critically about how it works’ Sunday Times

‘Indispensable. Everyone who wants to understand the digital world, its pitfalls and possibilities should read this book – now’ Matthew d’Ancona, author of Post-Truth

As you read this, thousands of remote computers are refining secret models of who you are, using the information to make huge fortunes for a few people. Does the future have to be this way? How can we change it? In this visionary book Jaron Lanier imagines an alternative, where economic power is given back to creators. Drawing on sources ranging from ancient philosophy to the latest technology, he proposes a radical system that truly rewards endeavour - whether it's in the media or manufacturing - and ultimately preserves human dignity.

Named a Best Book of the Year by the Economist, Wall Street Journal & Vox 'The father of virtual reality' (Sunday Times) explains why virtual reality presents the ultimate test for humanity. 'Essential reading, not just for VR-watchers but for anyone interested in how society came to be how it is, and what it might yet become' Economist Welcome to a mind-expanding, life-enhancing, world-changing adventure. Virtual reality has long been one of the dominant cliches of science fiction. Now virtual reality is a reality: from the startling beauty of lifelike video games to the place where war veterans overcome PTSD, surgeries are trialled, and aircraft and cities are designed. VR is, in fact now, the most effective device ever invented for researching what a human being actually is - and how we think and feel. More than thirty years ago, legendary computer scientist, visionary and artist Jaron Lanier pioneered its invention. Here he blends scientific investigation, philosophical thought experiment and his memoir of a life lived at the centre of digital innovation to explain what VR really is: the science of comprehensive illusion; the extension of the intimate magic of earliest childhood into adulthood; a hint of what life would be like without any limits. We are standing on the threshold of an entirely new realm of human creativity, expression, communication and experience, and as we use VR to test our relationship with reality, it may test us in return. 'Vivid and absolutely extraordinary' Evening Standard

In You are Not a Gadget digital guru and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier reveals how the internet is deadening personal interaction, stifling genuine inventiveness and even changing us as people. Something went wrong around the start of the twenty-first century. The crowd was wise. Social networks replaced individual creativity. There were more places to express ourselves than ever before... yet no one really had anything to say. Does this have to be our future? Showing us the way to a future where individuals mean more than machines, this is a searing manifesto against mass mediocrity, a creative call to arms - and an impassioned defence of the human. 'A provocative and sure-to-be-controversial book ... Lucid, powerful and persuasive' The New York Times 'There is hardly a page that does not contain some fascinating provocation' Guardian 'Short and frightening ... from a position of real knowledge and insight' Zadie Smith, New York Review of Books 'Poetic and prophetic, this could be the most important book of the year' The Times Jaron Lanier is a philosopher and computer scientist who has spent his career pushing the transformative power of modern technology to its limits. From coining the term 'Virtual Reality' and creating the world's first immersive avatars to developing cutting-edge medical imaging and surgical techniques, Lanier is one of the premier designers and engineers at work today. A musician with a collection of over 700 instruments, he has been recognised by Encyclopedia Britannica (but certainly not Wikipedia) as one of history's greatest inventors and named one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by Prospect and Foreign Policy.