Nick Clegg: In defence of Facebook and the Silicon Valley tech giants Enough! Even the world’s greatest brains are at it now. In a recent survey by the Times Higher Education supplement, […]

Enough! Even the world’s greatest brains are at it now. In a recent survey by the Times Higher Education supplement, 50 Nobel Prize winners were asked what they consider to be the greatest threats facing humankind. Amongst the more familiar fears of nuclear apocalypse, pandemics and catastrophic climate change some of the world’s greatest Laureates also included… Facebook.

Give me a break. I know Mark Zuckerberg et al are regularly criticised for not doing enough to stop fake news and extremism, and doing too much to mine our data for the benefit of advertisers, but a threat to the continued existence of humankind? Hardly.

Spare a thought for poor old Rupert Murdoch

Other critics of Silicon Valley are just plain disingenuous: traditional newspaper groups vilify social media companies for scooping up the lion’s share of advertising revenue. What do they expect? Social media companies – notwithstanding their occasionally pious New Age slogans – are profit making companies, not charities. There’s something faintly absurd about old predatory crocodiles like Rupert Murdoch, who has spent a lifetime remorselessly suffocating lesser rivals, whingeing plaintively about how beastly the new kids on the block are to him.

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Some commentators have declared that we should “nationalise” the likes of Facebook, Amazon and Google. Like the “robber barons” of old, they must be brought to heel. They know too much about us – so we, “the people”, should take back all the information they have on us. Or so the argument goes. In a bizarre intellectual contortion, the very same critics who abhor the threat to personal privacy from excessive intrusion by the security services think it’s ok to advocate mass state ownership of all data held in private hands. Eh?

It’s time we pause for breath before everyone charges off in a stampede of condemnation of tax-dodging-fake-news-extremism-promoting-data-controlling tech firms. The unthinking mood of hostility could soon topple into outright Luddism against new forms of technology. Already Artificial Intelligence – the evolving science of self-learning computer systems – is being widely characterised as a threat to our way of life, rather than an enhancement to human wellbeing. Just as society is encountering the early potential of a new technological revolution, many people are condemning it before it has even started.

Tech boom leaves locals behind

So there’s a need to restore some perspective. I am not remotely suggesting that the tech behemoths are blemish free. When I visited Silicon Valley this summer, a friend pointed out some residential streets lined with parked cars in which nurses, firemen, even teachers, were sleeping overnight because they couldn’t afford the sky-high rents driven upwards by the influx of tech money. There is growing – and legitimate – anger from local residents that the tech boom hasn’t been accompanied by more investment from the tech giants in local housing. No wonder some of the lofty rhetoric about changing the world rings hollow to those still waiting for a better life in Silicon Valley itself.

As an old-fashioned liberal who believes in the virtues of competition, I remain perplexed at the way in which US competition law only seems to care about the effect of near monopoly market dominance by a tiny number of big players if and when it increases the prices paid by consumers. It is not a doctrine shared by the EU. The jiggery-pokery of tax planning by the large multinational tech companies is also guaranteed to inflame public opinion. It may all be impeccably legal – and the companies are undoubtedly right to say the onus falls equally on Governments to change tax laws if they wish – but the impression that less tax is being paid than can reasonably be expected remains.

A world enslaved by robots?

And then there’s the unwitting tendency of some experts in the tech sector to alarm, not reassure, society at large: for some time now, researchers in Artificial Intelligence have predicted that it could put millions of people out of work, even though it is not yet remotely clear whether that really will come to pass. All previous predictions about the effect of new technologies – from factory machinery to the internet itself – have understated the number of new jobs which are created as old ones are phased out.

Respected figures like Stephen Hawking have issued spine chilling warnings of a world enslaved by robots. Just this summer, a communiqué was issued asking the UN to ban the use of AI in robotic weaponry to forestall the risk of machines waging wars beyond human control.

If that is what the experts are saying about the potential of their own inventions, we shouldn’t be surprised if politicians and Governments in future start trying to control or, worse still, close down such nascent technology altogether.

Technology’s time to embrace challenges

That is why we need a new deal between the tech world and politics: tech companies need to embrace, not shun, new ways for people to control their personal data, new ways to challenge fake news, and to accept greater scrutiny of the immense power they wield over markets, and of the taxes they pay; and Governments, old fashioned media, and the public at large need to avoid a knee-jerk condemnation of the disruption and potency of new technologies, and embrace the idea that technology can improve our lives.

Social media has its downsides – all means of communication do – but it nonetheless enables billions of people to access information and connect with each other on a scale and at a velocity never seen before. Artificial Intelligence could have its downsides – but it could equally help us diagnose and treat disease, manage traffic, improve productivity, reduce crime and clean up our environment on an unprecedented scale.

There’s a lot to be worried about these days – Kim Jong-Un, Trump’s wall, Brexit – but we shouldn’t talk ourselves into being frightened of the marvels of human ingenuity. We have an opportunity to direct technological innovation towards good goals. We shouldn’t turn our backs on the inventions of the future instead.