A01=Christopher M. Kelty
AI
Artificial Intelligence
Author_Christopher M. Kelty
Category=JBCT
Category=PDR
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Chris Kelty new book
Christopher Kelty
digital communication
digital culture
digital privacy
digital rights
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
ethics of AI
forthcoming
future of the internet
generative AI
history of the internet
internet culture
internet history
new media studies
philosophy of technology
superintelligence
what went wrong with the internet?
Product details
- ISBN 9781509574506
- Publication Date: 04 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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What happened to the internet we could have had? Can we remember a future that did not come to pass? The Internet We Could Have Had takes up the challenge, revisiting the days of "end-to-end" networks, of net neutrality, of free and open source software, the days of Geocities and the lulz of Anonymous. Not as nostalgia, but as a reckoning with the internet we do have.
The internet we could have had was a promise; it could have been a global brain, an end to monopoly capitalism, a liberation of free speech. How did we get from there to here: to surveillance capitalism and data colonialism, facing an extractive AI industry and a fragmented social media landscape powered by misinformation and advertising? Where did it all go wrong? What happened to the promise of the internet and how did it become the disaster we know today?
Part political inquest, part theoretical autopsy, Kelty documents how aspirations of liberation, openness, and participatory democracy opened a door — and through that door walked the Facebook Like Button, Amazon Web Services, Google’s Chrome browser and much more. A work of concerted remembering, The Internet We Could Have Had is an attempt to fathom how this past was immensely generative of a future we didn't ask for.
The internet we could have had was a promise; it could have been a global brain, an end to monopoly capitalism, a liberation of free speech. How did we get from there to here: to surveillance capitalism and data colonialism, facing an extractive AI industry and a fragmented social media landscape powered by misinformation and advertising? Where did it all go wrong? What happened to the promise of the internet and how did it become the disaster we know today?
Part political inquest, part theoretical autopsy, Kelty documents how aspirations of liberation, openness, and participatory democracy opened a door — and through that door walked the Facebook Like Button, Amazon Web Services, Google’s Chrome browser and much more. A work of concerted remembering, The Internet We Could Have Had is an attempt to fathom how this past was immensely generative of a future we didn't ask for.
Christopher M. Kelty is Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
