The Age of Extraction

In an economic future centered on artificially-intelligent platforms, how can their power be balanced to ensure a broad prosperity for everyone?

Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever created, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrish us, but also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation.

Tim Wu-the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase "net neutrality"-explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead. Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history-from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements-and envisions a future where technological advances serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for how to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.