Digital Technology’s Law of Amplification in Global Affairs
We are pleased to welcome Professor Kentaro Toyama for the 2022 Loewy Lecture in Technology and International Affairs:
Tuesday October 18, 2022
4:00pm – 5:15pm
Copley Hall
Reception to follow
In 2011, a “Facebook Revolution” was lauded for leading to the Arab Spring, but in 2018, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica were blamed for threatening democracy. In 2000, Bill Clinton mocked Chinese attempts to police its Internet, but within a decade, the country’s citizens were digitally contained within the “Great Firewall of China.” What explains digital technology’s diverse impacts, and why are predictions about it so often wrong?
The “Law of Amplification” reconciles technology’s seemingly contradictory outcomes, and enables partial predictions of tech’s impact on individuals and societies. This talk considers the law’s implications for global affairs and international development, and speculates about the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
Biography:
Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan, a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, and author of “Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology.”
History of Loewy Lecture
The annual STIA Loewy Lecture in Technological Innovation and International Affairs is supported by the Loewy Family Fund in honor of Ludwig and Erwin Loewy who were innovators in their own time. The Loewy brothers were born in Czechoslovakia and later worked in German shipbuilding firms until the Nazi rise to power. After escaping Nazi Germany, they worked in Great Britain and the United States to build extension presses, an important element of airplane production. Ludwig Loewy died in 1942, but Erwin Loewy went on to work on forging pressings for the Air Force, motion simulators for Polaris missiles, and the launch pad for the Vanguard rocket. The inaugural Loewy lecture was given by President (then Senator) Joseph Biden Jr. on June 4, 2000, who spoke on American diplomacy in the high-tech world.
Special Accommodations/Requests
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be made by (October 10th to ram350@georgetown.edu). A good faith effort will be made to fulfill requests made after this date.
This event is sponsored by the Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Program.