As Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and CEO of Mozilla Corporation, Mitchell Baker keeps watch on the state of the internet. So how’s it looking these days? As she puts it: “Mixed!”
Amid the robust to-and-fro of our everyday activities online lurks the reality that “engagement drives revenue and outrage drives engagement.” The result is a business model that’s questionable for our health, our happiness and the maintenance of democracy. “We know that,” says Baker. “The question is what to do about it.”
“Sam Altman has described himself as being in the middle but there are plenty of people who’ve left who feel that middle is too far along the line”
As an intellectual property lawyer for Netscape and a pioneer in the Mozilla community that’s advocated for open-source software and standards—a philosophy that its members backed up by creating apps, code, tools and browsers like Firefox.
Now, in the age of generative AI, Mozilla is working to create alternative paths, technologies and standards that would help to make the technologies more inclusive. Hard as they may try, the titans of tech rarely have a good track record in putting diversity and ethics first. “There’s a question of where you think the middle of the road is,” says Baker. “Sam Altman (of OpenAI) has described himself as being in the middle but there are plenty of people who’ve left who feel that middle is too far along the line.”
So Mitchell and Mozilla, of course, set out to create another way. For more, click on the interview above.
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