The Web World Wide: The Impact of the Internet

Wednesday, October 14, 2026

12:30 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. CT

YouTube

The world has gone from rotary phones to smartphones in the blink of an eye, and now many are buying apps and gadgets to “brick” their phones and stay offline. What are the net gains and losses from this still young technology–especially as the risks of connectivity grow?

There are countless positives to the internet, including fighting threats that the Bulletin covers. Online scientific collaborations have helped fight disease; social platforms have become a tool for climate organizing; and open-source intelligence tools have helped oversight groups monitor nuclear stockpiles.

At the same time, the disfunctions of the web seem to be at the heart of a broken politics that fails to respond to systemic threats, creates new geopolitical tension, and instills new existential dread as information warfare expands, the rise of AI, and environmental degradation.

Even though the internet has made some aspects of life better, do we need to log off to fix climate change? To protect our grid and our information? To maintain the very nature of society?

Join the Bulletin for a deep analysis of what the internet has brought, what it has wrought, and if the costs have begun to outweigh the benefits.

The world has gone from rotary phones to smartphones in the blink of an eye, and now many are buying apps and gadgets to “brick” their phones and stay offline. What are the net gains and losses from this still young technology–especially as the risks of connectivity grow?

There are countless positives to the internet, including fighting threats that the Bulletin covers. Online scientific collaborations have helped fight disease; social platforms have become a tool for climate organizing; and open-source intelligence tools have helped oversight groups monitor nuclear stockpiles.

At the same time, the disfunctions of the web seem to be at the heart of a broken politics that fails to respond to systemic threats, creates new geopolitical tension, and instills new existential dread as information warfare expands, the rise of AI, and environmental degradation.

Even though the internet has made some aspects of life better, do we need to log off to fix climate change? To protect our grid and our information? To maintain the very nature of society?

Join the Bulletin for a deep analysis of what the internet has brought, what it has wrought, and if the costs have begun to outweigh the benefits.

Speakers

Nathan Ensmenger is an associate professor of Informatics in the Luddy School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. His 2010 book, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise is a labor and gender history of computer programming. He is currently working on a book on the environmental history of computing, and another on the history of robotics.

Herbert Lin is a senior research scholar and research fellow at Stanford University and a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His research interests relate to the intersection of emerging technologies and national security, especially the digital technologies of cyber war, information operations, and artificial intelligence. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. He has also served as a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), in which his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues.

Moderator: Sharon Weinberger is the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She was previously the National Security Editor of the Wall Street Journal from 2022 to 2026. She was a 2026 Omidyar Network reporter-in-residence and has also held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is the author of four books on national security and technology, including the forthcoming Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War, to be published in September 2026 by Little, Brown. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Nature, New York Magazine, WIRED, and the Washington Post, among other publications.