How to Think about Privacy: An Interview with Jaron Lanier

The virtual reality pioneer talks Facebook, the NSA, the limits of big data and the future of our digital selves

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Is privacy dead? If so, did the Web kill it or did the NSA? What is privacy, anyway? And if we decide it’s worth preserving, how can we do that? For our November issue, computer scientist, musician, writer and thinker Jaron Lanier wrestled with these questions at length. After he was done we gave him a call to talk about his main points. Here’s the conversation.

 


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Seth Fletcher is director of editorial content at Scientific American. His book Einstein's Shadow (Ecco, 2018), on the Event Horizon Telescope and the quest to take the first picture of a black hole, was excerpted in the New York Times Magazine and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. His book Bottled Lightning (2011) was the first definitive account of the invention of the lithium-ion battery and the 21st-century rebirth of the electric car. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times op-ed page, Popular Science, Fortune, Men's Journal, Outside and other publications. His television and radio appearances have included CBS’s Face the Nation, NPR’s Fresh Air, the BBC World Service, and NPR’s Morning Edition, Science Friday, Marketplace and The Takeaway. He has a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism and a bachelor’s degrees in English and philosophy from the University of Missouri.

More by Seth Fletcher
Scientific American Magazine Vol 309 Issue 5This article was published with the title “How to Think about Privacy: An Interview with Jaron Lanier” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 309 No. 5 ()
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican112013-4KIv4PYKNej0Xko6hArZmH

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