Digital road ahead is messy, claim tech chiefs

When it comes to books forecasting the future, tech statesmen like Eric Schmidt don’t have a stellar track record. Even Bill Gates, in his 1995 The Road Ahead, ignored the internet just as it was about to transform the world.

If Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, and Jared Cohen, Google Ideas director, manage to sidestep any Gates-style howlers in The New Digital Age, it’s because their view of what’s ahead is complex, and not particularly pretty.

A common thread runs through their vision of how technology is redefining ideas of society, nationhood, and business. It’s that technology is just a tool, albeit an incredibly powerful one, and the good or evil ends to which it’s put will be limited only by the imaginations of those deploying it.