Starting in late 2018, whenever I would hand my driver’s license to a hotel clerk at a check in desk I would invariably get the same reaction. “Arthur Morgan? Wow! Did you know your name is the same as the main character in Red Dead Redemption Two?”
At that point I was in my 50s and had not played video games for many years. The first time this happened I had to admit that I had no knowledge of the game or the character. I made a mental note to research the game later and was pleased to discover that Red Dead Redemption was a western-themed role playing game, and Arthur Morgan was the rugged Clint Eastwood-style protagonist of the second release in the game series. I was flattered to be associated with such a character, even in such a superficial way.
Players of RDR2, as it is known to its fans, assume the identity of Arthur Morgan, exploring an 1899 version of America. The fictional Arthur Morgan faces numerous choices as he makes his way around the country. Sometimes the choices seem trivial. When a dog comes running up to you, barking and growling, do you scold the dog, or do you pet it? No matter how inconsequential the choice may seem at the time, each choice has the potential to affect your “honor score.” This is a cumulative number that is tracked throughout the game, essentially a karma index of sorts. Arthur Morgan is an outlaw, but one of his goals — implied by the word “redemption” in the title of the game — is to redeem himself for his past transgressions.
This book is my humble attempt to recount my own real-life search for redemption. While I don’t think anyone would consider me an outlaw, I do have a guilty conscience. Up to this point in my career I’ve mainly worked on software development. My primary focus has been artificial intelligence software, with occasional forays into social media. Over 25 years ago I managed a team of software developers at an Apple spin-off that was later described by former Apple CEO John Sculley as “the most important company in Silicon Valley that nobody’s ever heard of.” While our products ultimately failed to gain market traction, General Magic staff went on to develop many of the biggest technology innovations of the 21st century, ranging from eBay, to Nest thermostats, to the iPhone and Apple Watch. One General Magic team member later became the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the Obama administration.
Unlike those more successful “General Magicians,” I continued to toil in relative obscurity, fully leaning into the idea of working on important projects that nobody’s ever heard of. The son of two social scientists and educators, as my career progressed, I prioritized making an impact on future generations. Using technology to level the playing field and improve the way we work and live were my key objectives, or so I told myself. My list of somewhat esoteric accomplishments include working as a product manager for early text-to-speech and speech-to-text products (precursors to virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa), leveraging AI to develop products that make audio and video more accessible to people with disabilities, and designing AI-driven applications for educators and learners.
But while I liked to think that most of my projects were noble endeavors, I came to realize that there was a darker side to my career. Many of the products I have built have the potential to be deeply addictive, and addiction to these applications and platforms can have serious negative consequences. As an example, Facebook’s introduction of its “Like button” is often considered by social science experts to have been a tipping point in the addictiveness of social media platforms. Facebook launched the Like button on February 9, 2009. Nearly five years earlier, I developed a similar feature on an alternative social media platform that I created for high school and college-age bloggers. I figured out a way to gamify the process of writing blog posts in a way that caused tens of thousands of young people to remain glued to their screens for hours each day, interacting with people whom they’d never met.
I rationalized this behavior by telling myself that the participants on my platform were practicing and developing valuable writing and critical thinking skills. I still believe this to be true, but the flip side is that I contributed to the development of a genre of applications that is sometimes called “extractive technology.” This is a high-sounding euphemism for exploiting human psychology and attention for profit, often at the expense of individual and societal well-being.
Readers who are of Gen X age or older may have guessed from the title of this book that I have taken inspiration from John Steinbeck. In 1960, after having written fictional novels about the lives of Americans for over 30 years, Steinbeck decided that he had lost touch with America and Americans. He had his GMC pickup truck rigged with a camper shell and drove coast to coast across America and back with his dog. This journey of rediscovery was the basis of his 1961 memoir, Travels With Charley: In Search of America. My search for redemption has taken me on a similar quest, travelling with my own dog, Paco.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help me fix the America that I accidentally broke. I hope this book will help you navigate your own search for redemption for any transgressions that you may have committed in the polarizing fight that has come to be known as “the culture war.”
Along the way I will provide you with a toolkit of sorts that you can use to inform your choices. In each chapter I reference findings from psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists. I also include insights from journalists and historians who are adept at comparing and contrasting the past with current events. These insights should provide you with the equipment, provisions, and abilities needed to complete your mission. When the outlook for life in the real world seems bleak, it’s tempting to hide in the anonymity of the online world. But in real life, the best way to survive — and thrive — is to pack up all the things you’ve learned online, throw them in your backpack, and “take it to the streets.”
— (The Real) Arthur Morgan
San Mateo, California
