Alex "Sandy" Pentland

MIT Press · 2025

How can we build a flourishing society by using human nature to design technology rather than letting technology shape society? Pentland explores how cultural inventions, from civilizations to the Enlightenment, accelerated innovation and collective wisdom. He argues that understanding these key factors in cultural evolution is essential for solving global challenges like climate change and pandemics, and shows how AI and digital media can aid rather than replace human deliberation.

MIT Press · 2021

Data are now central to the economy, government, and health systems - so why are data and the artificial intelligence systems that interpret data in the hands of so few? "Building the New Economy" argues that we need to think about data as a new type of capital, and that data trusts and distributed ledgers can empower people with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, machine-learning fairness principles and methodologies, and secure digital transaction systems.