Tech will figure out the solutions to abuse

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

Jeff Bezos, president and CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, speaks at the Economic Club of Washington DC’s “Milestone Celebration Dinner” in Washington, U.S., September 13, 2018. 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Wednesday Silicon Valley’s biggest problems don’t have solutions yet, but “we’ll figure them out.”

“Technologies always are two-sided. There are ways they can be misused as well as used. And this isn’t new,” Bezos said the Wired 25th anniversary summit. “The book was invented and people could write really evil books and lead bad revolutions with them and create fascist empires with books and so on and so on. It doesn’t mean the book is bad.”

Amazon has been among the most heavily scrutinized tech companies in recent months, as insiders and lawmakers continue to call for reviews of the behemoth’s impact on competition. President Donald Trump has hinted at antitrust action against the company.

Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have also come under worsening fire.

“I think social media is increasing, unfortunately, identify politics, tribalism. I think internet in its current incarnation is a confirmation bias machine,” Bezos said.

“Society develops an immune response eventually to the bad uses of new technology. But it takes time,” he said. “The last thing we ever want to do is stop the progress of new technologies.”