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Deliberate Intervention

Using Policy and Design to Blunt the Harms of New Technology

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Do no harm" is Alex Schmidt's mantra throughout Deliberate Intervention—a book that delves into how policy and design can work together to prevent harms in technology. Using the journalistic approach she employed as an NPR reporter, Schmidt studies the history of policy making, its biases, and its evolution in the changing technology field. The beginning of each chapter highlights a graphic showing the transformation of policy and design, drawn by well–known illustrator, MJ Broadbent.

"For anyone who shapes or regulates new products, reading Deliberate Intervention is a step toward doing good by designing well."
—Conor Friedersdorf, Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Who Should Read This Book? This book is for anyone who is concerned about the harms of technology and interested in ways to circumvent them, i.e., policy makers, CEOs of tech companies, IT people, designers, lawyers, security analysts, product managers, healthcare workers, historians, writers—in other words, just about everyone. It's particularly helpful for anyone who is designing anything that involves technology and is worried about the potential harm in their decision-making.

Takeaways Readers will learn:
  • How policy and design can partner.
  • The history of policy and how evident harms have led to policy interventions and improvements.
  • As harms emerge from technology, individuals and companies really do have the tools to intervene.
  • Government can control harms with new policies.
  • How to create better policy with solid design measures.
  • What the future looks like for people with the advent of new technology.
  • Testimonials "Deliberate Intervention is an in–depth, thoroughly cited guide on the intersection of policy and design, employing a narrative style that makes the complex subject matter fun to read and easy to grok without losing any of its gravitas. An absolute must-read for any citizen designer."
    Lisa Baskett, Healthcare Design Strategist

    "What will it take to design technology that does less harm? This subtle book offers thoughtful, nuanced, sometimes unexpected answers. It's a good read for any curious user of technology. And for anyone who shapes or regulates new products, reading it is a step toward doing good by designing well."
    Conor Friedersdorf, staff writer, The Atlantic

    "This book is what America needs right now. With our democracy in dire straits and tech companies threatening our rights and privacy, the need for us to be proactive about policy is at an all-time high"
    Ginger Reinauer, Senior Product Designer

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      • Kirkus

        A debut policy book calls for the regulation of digital technology. Right at the start of her detailed work, Schmidt lays her cards on the table so readers will know whether or not they fundamentally agree with the pages that follow. When it comes to the vast subject of digital technology and its effects on young people, the author contends that society cannot afford to leave all meaningful regulation in the hands of the tech creators and purveyors. "Placing the responsibility on individual designers to fix these problems through 'ethics' is insufficient as a single response, particularly when capitalism is the paradigm they function in," she writes. "Beyond these individuals, reducing the harms of digital technology is simply too big a challenge for the private sector to address on its own." Schmidt takes some time to detail the history of governments intervening in order to regulate new technologies--everything from railroads, toys, and appliances to, more pointedly, radio and television. The author then elaborates on key concepts like "pain points" (the specific ways new technology is causing individuals distress, which can often be addressed by redesigning it) and "harms," which can't be quickly solved and call for intervention. Readers of such earlier books as Jean Twenge's 2017 iGen will be familiar with the alarms that Schmidt raises in these pages, worries about tech-augmented problems like "wrongful imprisonments, spread of conspiracy theories, broken familial relationships, addiction to dopamine, the fraying of democracy, and widespread discrimination along racial and gender lines." The author's prose is passionate and refreshingly direct--she's always compassionate and evaluative (and the text is well illustrated by Broadbent and expertly designed). But some readers will be alarmed by the Orwellian undertones to Schmidt's call for the top-down regulation of what many would consider individual freedom of expression. A thought-provoking, if sometimes overreaching, argument for policing new technology.

        COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)

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    • English

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