The two great Western technological revolutions of the past, the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century and the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, changed the course of economies and societies and radically altered how humans interacted with each other and their world. In this updated edition of From Gutenberg to Google, former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler takes up a still unfolding transformational revolution in twenty-first century technology: artificial intelligence. Building on insights on connectivity developed in the previous edition, Wheeler describes the enormous potential of this fast-expanding and powerful technology and highlights the urgent need for governments across the globe to regulate its use, both to limit opportunities for harm and to engage its capabilities for good.
Before he became chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 2013, Tom Wheeler started or helped found several companies offering new cable, wireless, and video communications services. He is also a historian with a deep interest in how the events and trends of today reflect—or don’t—what happened in the past.
Contents:
Acknowledgments
Preface
Prologue
Part I: Perspective
1. Connections Have Consequences
Part II: Predicates
2. The Original Information Revolution
3. The First High-Speed Network and the Death of Distance
4. The First Electronic Network and the End of Time
Part III: The Road to Revolution
5. Computing Engines
6. Connected Computing
7. The Planets Most Powerful and Pervasive Platform
Part IV: Our Turn
8. The History We Are Making
9. Connecting Forward
Epilogue
Notes
Index
How network revolutions of the past have shaped the present and set the stage for the revolution we are experiencing today
Sometimes we have to take a step back in order to understand what’s under our noses. With his entertaining account of three historical network revolutions, and the reactions they inspired, Tom Wheeler gives us the tools to understand the one we are living through today—and where it might take us tomorrow. — Tom Standage, author, The Victorian Internet
A fascinating review of 500 years of new technology and the challenges as well as opportunities of technological change. — Steve Case, American entrepreneur, founder AOL
Tom Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google contains page after page of insight about the unexpected ways in which technologies—from movable type and the telegraph to blockchain—have altered what we know and do. Drawing on his sure-footed command of the history of networks and from his time on the regulatory front lines, Wheeler has written a classic. — Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania
An entertaining and erudite tour of the great networks that have defined our civilization. Wheeler makes it clear that confronting the technological challenges of our time without the perspective provided by history is much like flying an airplane blindfolded. — Tim Wu, professor, Columbia Law School; author, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires and The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
