The Age of Extraction With Tim Wu
Watch: The Columbia Law professor discusses his new book and explains how tech platforms extract wealth, paving the way for a rise in autocracy.
In The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity, Tim Wu, Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science and Technology, explores the implications of the power dominance of a handful of tech companies. “There was a point when these platforms offered a lot for very little,” says Wu. “We were so optimistic about the internet, and we had this vision—it was going to make everybody rich and bring democracy everywhere, and the future was going to be grand.”
But the idealism underpinning the platforms in their early days has been replaced by “economic extraction,” according to Wu, who was an architect of the antitrust policies enacted under President Joe Biden. “We have moved to an age where business spends less of its time thinking of better products and more about thinking of ways to get more money for the same products.”
In the video above, part of the Professors in Print series, Wu explores themes of his book, including the role AI companies play in wealth extraction and how wealth extraction affects democracy.
