The Tech Industry’s Pandora's Box

We need to focus less on content and more on community.

The Birth of Pandora by James Barry, 1804 (ArtUK - Creative Commons)

The Birth of Pandora brings to life the mythological story of the gods' revenge on humans. Prometheus stole fire from heaven, and Zeus took revenge by presenting Pandora, the first woman, to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus. (Prometheus got a whole other set of nasty things visited upon him personally.)

In the painting, the gods are contributing to Pandora's creation, including the three cherubs approaching with the jar. Pandora opened this jar (later translated as a box) she gave to Epimetheus containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world.

In modern times the idiom Pandora's box means "Any source of great and unexpected troubles," or "A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse."

Pandora's Box Today

We received our own version of Pandora's box about 15 years ago. If we think of Big Tech as the all-powerful Zeus or Jupiter, at whose temple we worship, …