The Question
"Are digital technologies making politics impossible?"
James Williams
2016/2017
35-year-old James Williams, a doctoral candidate researching design ethics at Oxford University, has been announced as the inaugural winner of the US$100,000 Nine Dots Prize.
James’ entry Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy argues that digital technologies are making all forms of politics worth having impossible as they privilege our impulses over our intentions and are ‘designed to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities in order to direct us toward goals that may or may not align with our own’. You can read two short extracts from his entry here.
Born in Cape Canaveral, Florida and raised in Texas, James Williams is currently a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute and Balliol College, Oxford, where he researches the philosophy and ethics of attention and persuasion as they relate to technology design. In particular, he is interested in advancing the ways we can understand and protect user freedom in environments of highly persuasive design.
James is a member of the Digital Ethics Lab at Oxford and founder of the Oxford Internet Institute’s PhilTech seminar series. He directed the Oxford Data Experience Lab project on virtual reality and has helped teach the master’s-level Internet Technology and Regulation course. He is also a visiting researcher at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.
Prior to this he worked for over ten years at Google, where he received the Founders’ Award – the company’s highest honour – for his work on advertising products and tools. He holds a master’s in design engineering from the University of Washington and as an undergraduate studied literature at Seattle Pacific University. He is a co-founder of the Time Well Spent campaign, a project that aims to steer technology design towards having greater respect for users’ attention, goals and values.
James is a frequent speaker, consultant for companies and governments, and commentator on technology issues in the media. A big part of his mission is to make philosophy and ethics more accessible and relevant to designers, developers, and company leaders. His other interests include virtual/mixed reality systems, gaming, space travel, and the work of James Joyce.
Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy
May 31, 2018
James Williams launches a plea to society and to the tech industry to help ensure that the technology we all carry with us every day does not distract us from pursuing our true goals in life. As information becomes ever more plentiful, the resource that is becoming more scarce is our attention. In this ‘attention economy’, we need to recognise the fundamental impacts of our new information environment on our lives in order to take back control. Drawing on insights ranging from Diogenes to contemporary tech leaders, Williams’s thoughtful and impassioned analysis is sure to provoke discussion and debate. This title is free to download.
James’ book has now been translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, and an audiobook version is available.
The board
Professor Simon Goldhill (Chair of Prize Board)
Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge
Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek Literature and Culture and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.
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Professor Alcinda Honwana
Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa at the London School of Economics
Alcinda Honwana is Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa and Centennial Professor at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics
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Peter Kadas
Trustee of the Kadas Prize Foundation
Peter Kadas is a Trustee of the Kadas Prize Foundation.
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Professor Roger Martin
Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto
Roger Martin is Professor Emeritus and former Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
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Professor Riccardo Rebonato
Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School
Riccardo Rebonato is Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School and Scientific Director of the EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute. Previously he was Global Head of Rates and FX Research at PIMCO. He also served as Global Head of Market Risk, Global Head of Research and Head of Complex IR Derivatives Trading at several UK-based international institutions.
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Professor David Runciman
Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge
David Runciman is Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge and presenter of the podcast Past Present Future
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Professor Diane Coyle
Bennett Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge University
Diane Coyle is the author of numerous books including GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History, The Economics of Enough, and The Soulful Science (all Princeton University Press).
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Professor Paul Gilroy
Professor of English at Kings College London
Professor Gilroy joined Kings College London as Professor of English in September 2012, having previously been Giddens Professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics (2005-2012), Charlotte Marian Saden Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at Yale (1999-2005) and Professor of Cultural Studies and Sociology at Goldsmiths College (1995-1999).
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E.J. Graff
Journalist, editor and author
Managing Editor of the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog and Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University
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Professor Ira Katznelson
Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University
Ira Katznelson is an Americanist whose work has straddled comparative politics and political theory as well as political and social history. He returned in 1994 to Columbia, where he had been assistant and then associate professor from 1969 to 1974.
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