The 10 best tech books of 2023
Plus, the readers' choice awards for worst tech of the year
Well well well — 2023 is drawing to a close in a typically chaotic fashion.
The Biden administration declined to veto the International Trade Commission’s ruling that two Apple Watch models infringe on patents held by Irvine-based medical tech company Masimo, though an appeals court paused the ban. I’ve been on this story since October, and it’s pretty encouraging stuff; I never quite let myself believe that the courts would hold Apple, the richest company in the world, account for what seems to me to be pretty blatant patent infringement — a welcome development.
Speaking of patent infringement, the New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the tech companies used millions of its articles to train their generative AI systems, profiting off the output. This rules, and the lawsuit is rife with examples of output lifted directly from Times stories that appear very, very damning.
I very much hope that the rest of the media world follows suit — deals struck by the AP and Springer to let OpenAI ingest its incredibly valuable trove of work are essentially pathetic capitulations to OpenAI, especially since those companies got peanuts in return. OpenAI is going to train its models to parrot journalists’ work without citation or compunction, and it’s going to eat print media’s lunch more than Google or Facebook did — the best and perhaps only way to prevent such an outcome is to fight back, right now.
Anyway! This will be the last newsletter of the year, and I’ve got two columns to share and a quick round of BLOOD IN THE MACHINE updates.
First, this was an exceptional year for big, critical books about tech and its impacts on society — it was also an exceptional year for big, uncritical books about tech, but you can’t win them all. So I rounded some of my favorites up in a top ten list — somewhat of an inherently goofy thing, sure, as it’s not like I can claim to have read anywhere close to every book on tech that came out this year, but readers (like me) dig these things, and they make for a good excuse to celebrate good work.
This column was also the first time a photo I took in my home office with my iPhone filled like half a page of the LA Times’ print edition, so that’s fun.
As I wrote in the column:
I’d recommend skipping right past most of the “big” tech books of the year — especially “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson and “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, both of which sadly succumb to the kind of tech-founder hero worship that’s increasingly outmoded and often embarrassing. Especially when there are so many books that take a hard, nuanced look at the ways tech is affecting society — and are just so much more fun to read.
So, without further ado:
DOPPELGANGER by Naomi Klein
PALO ALTO by Malcolm Harris
YOUR FACE BELONGS TO US by Kashmir Hill
UNMASKING AI by Joy Buolamwini
NUMBER GO UP by Zeke Faux
TOKENS by Rachel O’Dwyer
EASY MONEY by Jacob Silverman and Ben McKenzie
SELLING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by Lee McGuigan
EXTREMELY ONLINE by Taylor Lorenz
THE INTERNET CON by Cory Doctorow
Good stuff all. That was last week — the holidays kept me from sending out a newsletter last weekend — and this week’s column is fun, too, I think. It’s the follow-up I promised to the Worst Tech of 2023: An Anti-Gift Guide, which proved to be enormously popular.
There were haters, but not many, and not very intelligent ones — the biggest complaint was that some of the things on the list couldn’t conceivably be ‘gifts’, which I personally thought was the very point of an “anti-gift” guide, but I digress — and on the flip side, tons and tons of great reader contributions and comments and thoughtful ideas from self-proclaimed Luddites. It was amazing.
Reader suggestions for the worst tech out there ranged from digital billboards to self-checkout kiosks to robot dogs, and it was as if each and every one of you was a luddite after mine own heart. Read the whole thing, but I’ll share one example here:
WAZE
The hands-down, horns-up “winner” of this competition is Waze. The items you’ve listed are mere potential or metaphysical threats to humanity. Waze, on the other hand, is a clear and present danger to every pedestrian, equestrian, simian and median on the planet. It plays not simply to the growing share of the population willing to make forty-five turns to shave three seconds off their travel time, but, as well, to those who race through pacific neighborhoods to drive home prices into their range.
Let them eat concrete!
Mark Steinberg
BLOOD ON THE YEAR-END LISTS
Speaking of things that make my luddite heart grow three sizes, I’ve been absolutely delighted to see Blood in the Machine included on a number of best-of-2023 lists. The New Yorker, the Financial Times, CBC, Politico, Engadget, and now, WIRED:
There’s no shortage of interesting nonfiction out right now about artificial intelligence and how it will change the world, our lives, the future, and more. But the most important book to read about the AI boom is about a completely different technological revolution, way back in the early 19th century.
Los Angeles Times technology columnist Brian Merchant’s Blood in the Machine is a spirited and thoughtful recounting of the Luddite uprising in response to the Industrial Revolution, one that draws parallel after parallel to the present. Read it and prepare to understand the current moment better. Also prepare to quell the urge to pick up a hammer.
Thanks so much, once again, to everyone who read, shared, recommended, or suggested the book — and even more so who practiced Luddism out there on the picket lines and in the trenches.
I said throughout last year that 2023 was the year of the Luddites, given the rising predilection among workers to push back hard against technologies being used to exploit them, but I think I need to amend that a bit — 2023 was the year of learning about the Luddites, and what it really means to do Luddism in the age of gig work and AI. No, I think 2024 (and beyond) will in fact be the year of the Luddite; of putting into practice a sustained tactical and strategic resistance to the executives, management, and bosses using AI and algorithms to squeeze workers. To instead shape technological development so that it’s not hurtful to commonality, but beneficial to all.
It’s going to be an uphill climb, but we’re going into the new year with our proverbial hammers raised.
Cheers all, wishing the very best to you and yours — General Ludd salutes you.
