SURFsounds special: between power and morality episode 1. What went wrong

Social media, big tech, ai and more, collect so much data that tech giants know you better than you know yourself. More times than not, it feels uncomfortable. And it actually is. Because the examples of the negative effects are not hard to find. Yet technology also moves us forward and there are great successes in research, medicine and safety, for example.

However, a moral compass is often missing when new technologies are developed, or too little thought is given to their possible applications or effects. Because technology is so widely present in all aspects of society, the stakes for society are high, as are the opportunities and risks. So how come it is such an unregulated playing field?

In this podcast, we talk to Marleen Stikker. She was at the cradle of the Internet in 1993 and with the Digital City she developed the first free gateway to a virtual community on the Internet. She is also founder, director and board member of Waag Futurelab, a leading European research institute for technology and society, with open, fair and inclusive technology. She takes us back to the early days and her take on what it will take to fix the Internet again.