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THE REALITY GAME

Samuel Woolley

How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth

A digital propaganda expert shows us what will be the next frontier of fake news - a vastly more powerful wave of technologies that will be used to manipulate and control disinformation and disrupt the political process.
Fake news posts and Twitter trolls were just the beginning. What will happen when misinformation moves from our social media feeds into our everyday lives? The problem of online disinformation stormed our political process in 2016 and has only worsened since. Yet as Woolley shows in this urgent book, it may pale in comparison to what's to come: human-like automated voice systems, machine learning, "deepfake" AI-edited videos and images, interactive memes, virtual reality, and more. In stories both deeply researched and compellingly written, Woolley describes this future and imagines its profound impact on our politics.

Information literacy is an essential ingredient in a healthy democracy, and The Reality Game shows how the breakneck rate of technological change is making it nearly impossible. Woolley argues for a new culture of invention, one built around accountability and especially transparency. We cannot afford to continue re-litigating the past. Instead, we must follow signals to prevent manipulation in the future--and use our new tools not to control people but to empower them.

Dr. Samuel C. Woolley is the Co-Founder of the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and the University of Washington. He is the Research Director of the Digital Intelligence Laboratory at the Institute for the Future. He's also a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, a visiting scholar at the Center for Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California, Berkeley, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, and an associate member of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. He has appeared in news articles and on TV programs across the globe. His work has been presented to the U.S. Congress, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, U.K. Parliament, NATO, and the parliament of the European Union.
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Published 2020-01-07 by Public Affairs

Comments

UK / C: Endeavour

Author Samuel Woolley argues that a slew of new technologies will further degrade political life unless we rein them in. ... Read more...

While the rest of us have been processing our shock at the fake news crisis, Sam Woolley has been anticipating what's coming next. This a mind-blowing and essential book for a future that's practically already here, whether we know it or not. This book scares the hell out of me, but if we listen to Woolley's wake-up call, then I also have hope.

Woolley spoke to the Chronicle about The Reality Game, computational propaganda, and concerns for 2020... Read more...

This is a crucial book for understanding online misinformation, disinformation, and outright propaganda. Like a good doctor, Sam Woolley has given us an excellent diagnosis of this problem, and laid out a treatment plan. Now it's up to politicians and the public to heed his timely advice.

MIT Technology Review published an excerpt of THE REALITY GAME Read more...

Excerpt of THE REALITY GAME and interview with author Read more...