The Upside of Being Ruled by the Five Tech Giants
You’ve got one or two big firms, and they have a lot of public pressure to be a responsible actor.”
Over the last few weeks, many people at large tech companies have repeatedly responded to my questions about the dangers posed by big tech with
a funny argument: Yes, they would say, the other tech giants really are worrisome — so why was I including their company in that group?
“This is new stuff everybody is dealing with — it’s not easy,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank, and co-author of “Big Is Beautiful,” a coming book
that extols the social and economic virtues of big companies.
But none of the Five see themselves as part of a group — each of them worries about the threat posed by start-ups and by the other four giants, which means
that none feels it has the luxury to slow down in creating the best new stuff.
And not only do they keep creating new tech, but they are coming at it in diverse ways
— with different business models, different philosophies and different sets of ethics.
One benefit of having five giant companies in charge of today’s tech infrastructure is
that they provide a convenient focus for addressing those problems.
Over the last few weeks, several scholars said there are good reasons to be sanguine about our new tech overlords.