Why Big Tech Is Incompatible with Democracy | Bruno Giussani | TED

The increasing algorithmization of our lives, driven by digital technologies that have become invisible platforms, presents significant problems. These cloud-based platforms, controlled by providers, grant immense power, dictating visibility of ideas, access to information, and influencing public debate. While efficient and convenient, this reliance comes at the cost of data extraction, privacy loss, fragmented attention, dependency, and mental health issues. Generative AI exacerbates this by offering the delegation of thinking and learning, creating a dependency that diminishes our ability to think and decide independently. These technologies, under the guise of optimization, reprogram and diminish our capacity to understand and act upon reality, effectively hypnotizing and domesticating us. For Europeans, this issue is compounded by the overwhelming dominance of American digital technologies. A technological lag, born from economic opportunism and naivety, has led to a loss of digital autonomy. This dependence is a systemic vulnerability, as these platforms are aligned with American government priorities, creating a convergence of military, political, and cloud power. Europe's reliance on American servers and software, encoding American values and subject to American law, poses a substantial political and economic risk. A cutoff of this infrastructure, for any reason, would cause near-immediate paralysis across all sectors. The speaker argues for a de-Americanization of digital uses and infrastructures, not out of anti-American sentiment, but against technological submission. This involves reclaiming control and restoring digital sovereignty. While European tech giants don't exist, numerous smaller, national alternatives do, and they need to be scaled through deliberate action, such as prioritizing them in public procurement. This would redirect billions of euros currently spent on American technology, fostering growth and competitiveness among European providers. A distinct European model is needed, emphasizing transparency, interoperability, and respect for values, with business models that don't exploit personal data. This approach should be competitive, building technology rather than just integrating or regulating it. Emancipating from this dependence is difficult but possible, as demonstrated by various European entities adopting open-source software and developing national tech stacks. Ultimately, the existence of Big Tech, with its concentrated power and grip on our lives, is incompatible with freedom and democracy. Resisting this technological submission and regaining control of our cloud and data is crucial for remaining free and democratic.