Customer Reviews

Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Future Imperfect is an economist's take on the radically unpredictable technological change to come over the next thirty years. It is thorough, fair, and well-reasoned.

The first half focuses on changes in information technology, particularly in regard to privacy and encryption. I found this material somewhat dry, although it is especially well-researched due to the author's familiarity with the material. I found the extreme good and bad outcomes less desirable and terrifying than those in the second section; perhaps that is why it was less interesting.

The second half of the book is more speculative, and some apparently say less thorough, but I think that is really because there is more uncertainty involved in space, nanotech, and biotech research. We really do not know whether the grey goo scenario is possible, or whether the fact that "natural nanotech machines" haven't already created such a disaster means that it is impossible. We do not know if our conciousnesses can be uploaded into a machine, or what the implications would be. We do not know if space elevators will be of sufficient use to justify their costs in thirty years. Personally I think this makes this part of the book much more interesting. I had a similar feeling when reading Matt Ridley's The Red Queen; the end of the book was very speculative, and some friends disparaged it for departing from well-established science. While I find the "what is" stuff interesting, the "what if" is even moreso.

It's well-written, painless (probably for non-lawyers and non-economists, even), and discusses important issues. I think it is well worth picking up for anyone interested in the technologies that will become important within our lifetimes.

This book is a very good survey of current and emerging technologies for the next few decades and their probable social impacts (and possible but not likely impacts). I didn't learn much new, because I try to keep up with current and emerging technology, at least with its capabilities; being able to do most of them is beyond my abilites. As the earlier reviewer mentioned, Friedman's coverage of space flight is weak, but that is because the author (and I) strongly suspects not much is likely to change substantially there for the next few decades. The review of biotechnologies is weaker than computational technologies because the author is less personally knowledgable in that area, it is still a very good summary of what has appeared in the popular science press.

The greatest strength of the book is the extremely thorough discussion of internet security issues and technologies and their likely impacts.

Rather than debating what will happen in the future, Friedman brings our attention to the changes that will occur within our culture and legal system as a result of these technologies. He starts with numerous hypotheticals, poses potential answers to those hypotheticals, and then goes above and beyond with further problems and solutions, until it seems that only through market powers can we find ourselves able to deal with the onslaught of changes we're about to encounter.

The most interesting thing, to me, about this book was actually the near future technology (and their implications) that I was unaware of. The parts covering nanotechnology and extended life, among other things, was stuff I'd heard about already and, given how little is known about those things, it's not surprising that the book can't go into as much detail as you'd like about them.
The stuff about encryption, ecash, law enforcement, and surveillance technology I actually found more interesting. The idea of almost perfect privacy in cyberspace and almost none in "realspace" was fascinating. Also, the idea that with this perfect privacy online, a business that offered to murder people for a price could be much easier because it could gain a reputation and would be easy to access (you can imagine it would be easier to get money for a hitman than it would be to find one you can trust).

Overall it's a great book, well worth reading.

What began as part of one of Friedman's Law School seminars in assessing the effects of various technological innovations turned into a book envisioning the effect of ten emerging technologies, their possible benefits and unintended consequences over the next 30 years. For the law student participants and us readers perhaps the best value of this is as an exercise in problem solving, as the actual issues and challenges will probably be different (as in just about all situations what we don't know is the main risk we face). Friedman is uniquely suited for such an intellectually challenging task having first earned a PhD in theoretical physics then having pursued a career as an economics professor, and now as a law professor. As he puts it, "I am an academic economist who teaches at a law school and has never taken a course for credit in either field."

This is my first exposure to Friedman's writing and my first impression is that his style is engagingly informal and his ideas intelligent and informed, and I am amazed that this isn't a popular book with dozens of Amazon reviews. Yet that it has only received 4 on Amazon in over 2 years reinforces my observation that people don't really want to know what's really going on, or can go wrong, outside our little bubble - we'd rather wait and look in the rear-view mirror when the flashing lights get our attention. So instead of worrying about how nano-technology, or artificial intelligence will quickly (and inevitably?) change our world (and perhaps definition of ourselves as a species), we instead get all upset about relatively small changes like global warming, peak oil, cap and trade policy, future of social security, health care reform, political corruption - meanwhile there loom the really revolutionary changes already around us...

I love being reminded of the bigger picture (in whatever context), and it is fascinating to consider the range of uncertainties (more insidious than the obvious threats of nuclear waste, environmental destruction and population boom/bust cycles), where the 3 main human forces seem to be 1) innovative creative types (the free market vanguard so to speak, often illegal), 2) The Government regulator/controller types (always a day late and a dollar short) and 3) the Luddite abolitionist types ("just say NO") - no matter what the technology, these three will continue to struggle. I supposed realistically and practically most of us are a mix of these three, and so it helps to think not only about the technologies unfolding around us, but how we react and think (or don't) about them. How and who designs and tries to control these possible futures will be hugely significant...and Friedman clearly yet undogmatically presents this as being a choice of either a future of centralized (unworkable and totalitarian top-down approach) or decentralized (libertarian, true market ground-up approach) design.

When I read these words in the introduction I knew I was in for a fresh and stimulating read;

"...At the moment, the fashionable focus for worries about the future is global warming. It is probably a real problem and perhaps something should at some point be done about it. But, despite all the public furor and images of flooded cities, on current evidence it is not a very large problem. ...the IPCC predicts, if nothing is done, a sea level rise of a foot or two by the end of the century and an increase in average temperature of a few degrees .... At least three of the technologies I discuss in this book - nanotech, biotech and artificial intelligence - have the potential to wipe out our species well before the end of the century. They also have the potential to create a future sufficiently rich and technologically advanced to make global warming a problem that can be solved at the cost of the spare change of a few philanthropists."

What I found in the book helped explain why it hasn't become a popular best seller; Friedman goes into thorough detail to describe the somewhat arcane and hypothetical seeming and intricate consequences (though reality based and practical - eventually) of these technologies - from encryption and privacy to artificial life forms. These are mostly issues which I've been exposed to and interested in since entering the internet/digital age in the mid 90's but haven't pursued in depth, it's nice to revisit them all in detail under such able and affable guidance, but it might be just too much detail for most people. It also really feels like a law school seminar - yet refined and concentrated to be even more so. It is intelligent and stimulating but also somewhat unsexy (like the details of how ecash can work - which I sure wish was already the norm so I could charge people to fill my email with their spam), or just overwhelming in the relentless almost random way technology/society progresses (which really feels out of our hands, if not totally out of control!).

So, lacking more sci-fi escapist/entertainment value, or palatable and easily digestible visions of our immediate future (or rather understandable past) I can see why the average person would rather argue about health-care reform, or office politics, or who had the TV remote last...

THis book is a easy to medium read. It is well written and enjoyable. The auther shows the posible legal benefits and repercussions of possible future technologies.
He's good while discussing web tech's, but his space and biotech are weak.