The Future of Truth - by Steven Rosenbaum (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"So timely and essential a selection choice for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Artificial Intelligence/Technology collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists." --Midwest Book Review

"A lively account . . . An argument that machine-moderated truths are more complex and fraught than humanity's own long struggle with facts, bias, and belief." --Kirkus

Truth was never simple, but facts were facts. Now, even that is changing. You feel the drift--the blur--as stories bend, facts fracture, and reality starts to feel . . . negotiable. That's not failure--it's the fight for the future of Truth.

In The Future of Truth, we go on a truth treasure hunt. Author, filmmaker, and media explorer Steven Rosenbaum sets out to understand how this is happening--and what comes next. What begins as a personal investigation becomes something stranger and more urgent: a story about systems captured, consensus collapsing, and humans caught in the digital crossfire.

In these pages, we'll explore:

• How Truth is being bent, blurred, and synthesized, and how the ways we love, work, learn, and remember are changing--even history is no longer trusted
• Why institutions we recently trusted--medicine, education, justice, journalism--are collapsing under pressure of fast-moving, profit-driven AI
• What happens when war is waged with data, protests are hijacked by bots, and power hides behind precision algorithms
• How, in their hunger for clarity, robots erase Truth's messy, beautiful middle, replacing it with something cold, confident, and designed to serve soulless AI, not the humans who built it

At the heart of the book are exclusive, provocative conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time: wild-haired philosopher David Chalmers calls it "a simulated reality crisis." Cultural provocateur Douglas Rushkoff says, "Truth has been coded for profit." Legal legend Larry Lessig warns of "an attention economy built to distort." AI truth-teller Gary Marcus sees "confidence without comprehension." Gen Z literary leader Hailey Colborn, raised inside the feed, says "Truth isn't something you find--it's something you perform." And futurists and reformers Juan Enriquez, Esther Dyson, Steve Fuller, and Eli Pariser each offer raw, urgent, and provocative visions on where Truth is headed--and whether we can still catch it before it falls off a cliff.

Part cultural investigation, part memoir, and part manifesto, The Future of Truth is a wild journey into the collapse--and the humans determined to rebuild Truth into something better, before AI rewrites reality without us.

Review Quotes

"Brilliant." --Nicholas Thompson "Urgent." --Maria Ressa "Essential." --Kurt Andersen "Different." --Daniel H. Pink "Hopeful." --Michael Wolff "Lucid." --Bob Garfield "Bracing." --Ian Bremmer "Important." --Frances Haugen "Riveting." --David Ewing Duncan "Unflinching." --Jay Samit

About the Author

Steven Rosenbaum is the executive director of the Sustainable Media Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring the impact of AI and social media on truth and society. An accomplished writer and commentator, Rosenbaum has authored books such as Curation Nation and The Future of Truth, where he delves into the ethical and societal implications of technology on media and public discourse. With a master's degree from NYU's Gallatin School focusing on the future of truth, he is a recognized thought leader on issues related to media integrity, AI, and digital transformation. His insights are regularly featured in publications like HuffPost, Forbes, and Fast Company, making him a sought-after speaker on the evolving landscape of technology and truth.