A review by joans
Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality by Jaron Lanier

5.0

If you're a technologist who can't quite get behind Facebook and doesn't necessarily think AI is going to take over the world, but can't put your finger on exactly why (that's me!), this book may help. Dawn of the New Everything is a memoir about the way the internet didn't turn out. It explores the humanistic side of technology, and how VR (or at least some of the lessons of VR) could shift the way we think about capitalism, "content," people's interactions with technology in the era of fake news. The book is mostly pragmatic, staunchly anti-utopian, and generally self-deprecating. It was a delight to read, and I'll be chewing on Lanier's ideas for a while to come.