He coined the term virtual reality, now he criticized the digital capitalism: In Frankfurt, the computer scientist Jaron Lanier has been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
“The vain culture. is an illusion, someone always pays “- there are sentences like this that you get to hear when you talk with Jaron Lanier today. Lanier, 54, is one of the sharpest critics of the digital economy, but he has himself worked for years in tech companies. Early eighties about Lanier worked for the consumer electronics giant Atari. He is considered a pioneer of the early years of the Internet, as one of those who coined the term virtual reality.
At the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair Lanier has now been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Lanier as insistently “to the dangers that threaten our open society, if its the power of the design is removed,” it says in the explanatory memorandum to the Board of Trustees. His latest book “Who owns the future” will be bondage, abuse and monitoring a call alert to.
Lanier criticized the business model of Internet companies such as Google and Facebook, gather the masses of personal data of Internet users and use the associated reach for advertising. The wealth will thus concentrated in the hands of a few entrepreneurs fears Lanier, while the broad middle of society gets nothing. “We need a new kind of balance,” Lanier said in Frankfurt.
He sees himself as “digital idealists”
The writer argues for the gradual introduction of a new model of the Internet economy, wherein the private copyright should be remunerated information for each call their data with small amounts. In an interview with the newspaper “Die Welt” says Lanier, he was not a cultural critic or Internet theorist, but simply “a mitdenkender practitioners”. In his latest book, he calls himself a “digital idealists.”
This award Lanier’s the Peace Prize, which was announced in June, pushed straight on the internet, despite criticism. Jürgen Geuter that occurs on the Internet under the name aunt, wrote in a commentary, the price for Lanier was “a challenge to the ‘power of Everybody’”: “It is a rejection of ideas such as open source and crowdsourcing, a demand the return traditional power and production structures. “
Jaron Lanier came in 1960 in New York to the world. His mother fled from the persecution of the Nazis from Vienna, his father’s family came from the Ukraine. At 13 he enrolled to mathematics lectures at the University of the State of New Mexico.
he will leave the software development now younger, Lanier said in Frankfurt. He is currently busy with a variety of projects. In the research department of Microsoft, he is involved in the development of applications for recognition of body movements.
Away from his duties as a computer scientist, author and lecturer Lanier is also an instrument collector and composer. His love is especially rare wind and string instruments of Asia. So he brought the book fair an ancient bamboo flute from Laos with a khaen.
In his speech at the award ceremony in the St. Paul Church Lanier said he had still greater joy of technology, as if he could express. Nevertheless, he write books to take a look at the big picture. “On the Internet, there are just as many comments about the Internet such as pornography and cat pictures, but in reality can only media out of the Internet – especially books – identification of perspectives and syntheses,” Lanier said. “That’s one of the reasons why the Internet should not be the only communication platform.”
One of the most important cultural awards
With its peace prize honors the German book trade since 1950 personalities for themselves international understanding and humanity to use. The prize is awarded, which is considered one of the most important awards in Germany, from the Association of German Book Trade. The prize is worth 25,000 euros.
Among the most famous peace prize-winners include Albert Schweitzer (1951), Hermann Hesse (1955), Astrid Lindgren (1978), Siegfried Lenz (1988), Vaclav Havel (1989 ) and Mario Vargas Llosa (1996). Last year the prize went to the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievitch.
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