Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age

A short polemic that treats programming as the literacy of the digital age and asks whether people direct their technology or are directed by it.

Rushkoff builds the argument as ten commands. He compares the shift to digital media with earlier ones. When people gained language they learned to speak as well as listen, and when they gained literacy they learned to write as well as read. The book holds that using programs without knowing how they are made gives up control to those who do. Understanding code, it says, gives access to the control panel of civilization. The 2010 OR Books paperback carries original illustrations by Leland Purvis.

Rushkoff writes on media, technology and society. A second edition from OR Books in 2024, Program or Be Programmed: Eleven Commands for the AI Future, adds a section on artificial intelligence.