Chris Anderson has a dream. 

The curator of TED talks wants to turn the internet into a positive force that brings people together.

And the key to it, he believes, is what he calls “infectious generosity”.

It’s a laudable aim, as he explains in ‘Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading’ (Crown).“Generosity is the key ingredient for a contented life,” he writes. “[And] The ingredients to infectious generosity are hiding in plain sight. 

“Simple, ordinary, unremarkable human kindness, for example, now has the potential to ripple outward like never before.”

Among scores of examples, Anderson cites the driver who left his car in a torrential downpour in Washington DC in 2022, to give an umbrella to a couple, one of whom was wheelchair-bound. 

Pre-internet, this act of kindness would have meant nothing but to those involved but the fact another motorist captured it on video allowed it to go viral, clocking up millions of views and inspiring others to do likewise.

Indeed, Anderson argues that while the world awaits the true impact of AI, it’s the internet that can play a part in making us more generous beings. “The internet can turbocharge generosity and generosity can transform the internet,” he writes.

It’s particularly true of social media where algorithms hook users on never-ending doom and division, or “monetized anger”, as he calls it. 

But as Anderson explains, viral clips like the Washington example or the case of Joshua Coombes, the London hairdresser who, in 2015, began giving free haircuts to homeless people, are proof that generosity can inspire others to do likewise, given sufficient exposure. 

According to Anderson, most people are so wrapped up in their own lives they find it impossible to imagine doing anything for anyone else. The key, he says, is finding a pathway to the “generosity mindset”that’s at the heart of all giving.

“We humans need not sleepwalk through our lives. Unlike any other species, we have the ability to step back, reflect, imagine,” writes Anderson. “We’re all co-authors of the future. And the story we write together may yet surprise us.”