He may not be a technopreneur, nor a prolific hunter for online memes and social media influencer. But nevertheless, none of those can exist without his invention.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has long visioned a decentralized internet, yet, the world is creating a place where gatekeepers rule his creation, monetize hugely, and make users the commodities. Here, Berners-Lee remains deeply engaged in what he describes as a “battle for the soul of the web.”
In a recent interview with The Guardian while promoting his book "This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web," he expressed both alarm at the internet's current trajectory and cautious optimism that meaningful change is still possible.
He frames his ongoing mission as a fight to reclaim the web's original promise of empowerment, collaboration, and openness for everyone.
He insists that:
Berners-Lee's vision in 1989 was for a universal, free platform where everyone could access and contribute to shared knowledge.
Now, with over 5.5 billion users, the web has delivered immense benefits. From email and video calls to global collaboration and creative tools, and pretty much a lot of things between them. However, the web has also been corrupted by commercialization.
He points to the 1990s commercialization of the domain name system as an early misstep, where what should have been a nonprofit public resource was handed over to profit-driven interests. This paved the way for platforms optimized for engagement through addictive feeds, surveillance, polarization, and disinformation.
"It’s optimised for nastiness," he said of much of social media, noting that while these toxic elements represent only a portion of the internet, people spend disproportionate time on them because of their addictive design.
He rejects the old notion that technology is inherently neutral.
"There used to be a sort of mantra that technology was neutral and people are good and bad. But actually, that’s not true of things on the web. The way you design a website, like Reddit or Pinterest or Snapchat, can be explicitly good. Or, designed with engagement as a priority, its algorithm can be explicitly bad."
Centralization by giants like Facebook and Google has compounded the issues, locking data into non-transparent, incompatible silos that stifle innovation and user control.
Then, when it comes to AI, Berners-Lee's tone turns markedly more urgent.
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AI, he notes, exists only because of the vast data harvested from the web, yet its development remains largely unchecked in corporate silos. He warned:
His warning is based on the efforts made by companies to rein in the large language models (LLMs) war, where the technology is experiencing both growing capabilities and unchecked advancement.
He called for a collaborative, scientific approach akin to CERN, where he originally created the web's foundational technologies.
"I would like to see a Cern for AI … where the scientific community gets to look at the AI and to decide whether it is safe or not." Currently, he lamented, "We have got AI being done in these huge companies, but also in these huge silos. They’re not looking over each other’s shoulder. They’re just sitting there, inside their own company, looking at their own system, trying to make it smarter. I don’t see a way that we can get to a point where the scientific community gets to look at the AI and to decide whether it is safe or not."
While Berners-Lee supports thoughtful regulation and alternatives like child-safe devices over broad bans, his core belief is that people-powered innovation, rooted in compassion and collaboration, can prevail.
The web's darker path is not inevitable, he argues, and the window to steer it back toward its empowering roots remains open, even as AI races ahead unchecked.