… Or, resistance is futile.
By Michael Shook
When cell phones first arrived, I thought they were swell. Here was a handy thing to have, especially since I worked in construction. I could call our driver and tell him to pick up some more 2×6’s, or to swing by the shop for the table saw, and so on. The basic cell phone was (is) a wonderful tool.
Likewise, the personal computer – I’m typing this on my laptop, far more easily than on an actual typewriter (at least for me), making it light-years easier to edit and rewrite. And e-mail gives me a convenient way to keep in touch with friends.
Though I am indeed a Luddite, I acknowledge that much technological change is not only inevitable, but good. Just as the advent of the automobile rendered equine transportation a thing of the past, even as it displaced a significant portion of the labor force, it proved a great boon overall. But the difference now between that, and the technologies of today, as manifested in computers, smart phones, and the AI “helpers” that crop up everywhere, is that the new machines are meticulously tuned to use, misuse, and abuse some of the most vulnerable aspects of our human-ness, our all-too human frailties and weaknesses.
This is not by happenstance. It is built into the technology itself. The claim is efficiency, but the engine driving it is greed. The machine helps us, yes, but it also uses us as things – information fountains, garnering all manner of knowledge of our habits, our desires, our dislikes, in everything from politics, to sports, to clothing, to food. It plays upon our pride, our sense of self-importance, our inherent narcissism, and, most of all, our craving for attention, to be noticed in this increasingly impersonal, always indifferent world. Through the algorithms employed, we receive one dopamine hit after another, drawing us inevitably deeper into a relationship with an electronic device. And we purr as a cat purrs when stroked.
We are being overwhelmed in a tsunami of technology so sophisticated, and so tuned to the way our minds work, that much of the time we don’t fully realize what’s happening to us. Or, if we realize it, find ways to dismiss it – think, for instance, how many times we’ve taken in passages similar to the one just read, been made aware of the insidious and deleterious effects that too often occur from the use of digital devices, and yet, still, pretend it is not happening.
Meanwhile, those who create, manufacture, and control these devices, work endlessly to find new ways to keep us hooked, new ways to “guide” us, if you will, making us ever more dependent on their machines.
The pervasiveness of the technology is destined to remove any real choice as to whether or not to participate in its use. That may be behind the casual dismissal we so often employ, the fatalism of, “Oh, well, whaddya gonna do?” To read a menu, to pay for parking one’s vehicle, to gain access to needed information – increasingly, these are done only through the use of yet another “app.” Yes, there are savings there, monetarily if in no other way, but what is being sacrificed? If nothing else, is not the human interaction required in these, and many more activities, an enjoyable, and, even moreso, a necessity for our communal existence?
I can imagine a day, not far off, when there will be no grocery-checker, and tickets for a ferry will be purchased by showing an app on one’s smart phone, and there will be neither ticket seller, nor booth, just a kiosk, with a creepy AI voice. One may argue that such will be an improvement, that it will relieve someone of a tedious, rather boring job (at least from some perspectives), but what then? Of the jobs that will soon be lost to AI, in all its forms, what will those rendered jobless do to earn a living? We may find ourselves questioning, “What are people for?” as does a character in Kurt Vonnegut’s prescient 1952 novel, “Player Piano.”
And every time an app is used, what it is used for, where it is used, when, and how often, are all recorded, and fed into data centers, thence into AI programs whether we wish it or not. As well, our movements are continually tracked, if not by our phones, then by the computers in our cars, even down to the device embedded in your tires to record tire pressure.
Ostensibly, this is to help us, to make our lives easier, safer, to smooth the path. Mostly, though, the information is used by companies to tailor advertisements specifically for each of us. Or for political entities to create messages to appeal to us, and, too frequently, to our worst impulses – to the detriment of ourselves and our republic. Or, the information is gathered and sold to various government agencies, which is perfectly legal, though without doubt, unlawful. The adage, “If you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product” was never more appropriate.
Not surprisingly, Congress has shown no stomach whatsoever for prudent regulation of technology companies, given the massive amounts of cash showered on them by our new Gilded Age masters. I doubt we can look for relief in the shorter term.
We will be assimilated.
