semi-unfounded, spur-of-the-moment rant on technology
honestly? after movies like I, Robot and Eagle Eye, i can't see why anyone would even think about pursuing the whole "let's try to make a machine act like a person" thing.
i'm pretty sure all this does is teach people to rely less on their own actions and responsibilities. i know the thinking is "well if we can get a robot to do these things, then we can think about bigger and better things and it's actually better for everyone!!!" it's actually not.
a lot of why i think this has to do with outsourcing. getting robots to do things for us just reduces the need for human jobs. people will say things like, "well, you just get someone to run the robot or technology etc." problems with that:
1. it makes the person who is running the thing actually lazier (i.e. toll booth people. all they have to do is like, push a button and take your money), which contributes both to an obesity epidemic as well as intellectual scarcity. when all someone has to do is run a program or a system, they don't get to exercise creativity, and they don't get to do the physical work of thinking or making or actually working - all of which are essential to human existence, i believe.
2. you're still catering to people with that know-how, since having to get people educated and teach them how to work that technology takes a lot of time, and the whole point of making technology and robots is efficiency in the first place (though i would be inclined to say that pride is an ugly stepsister of efficiency; part of it's like, "look how efficient we are;" the other part is "look how cool this is!" if it's not capable of being used well, we'll still say it's "cool," which i think is settling for a lesser good. however "cool" it is that x or y can happen / work / etc, it's more cool if that can be used to help everyone. i also think there's some sense to "wow, look what we can do!" like we're sooo impressed with ourselves. like we forget that "there is nothing new under the sun" (ecclesiastes), like we forget that "all things are possible in God" (matthew, mark, corinthians). we are always sitting back, making technology we don't have the spiritual stability to consistently use well, and talking about how awesome we are because of it.
3. as a result of 2., we maintain, globally, a third-world crisis; the gap between the rich and the poor grows greater and greater because the rich, instead of selecting from the poor to (educate, train, give jobs to, provide a livelihood for, give skills and funds to run their family and their community appropriately and well, etc), they select the lesser of the silicon valley yuppies. all these little computer-science interns get jobs where they get to mindlessly (see #1) run high-tech science equipment simply because it's "good on a resume" or will get them "in" with the upper realm of science, and maybe because they think it's "cool" (see #2), and community is maintained specifically and locally within a field as opposed to globally, cross-culturally, cross-demographically. aaauuuughhh the homogeny kills me. classic example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. why would we do anything without seeing how many people we can help in the process? why does the greater good suffer for the sake of expediency?
side note, in thinking that a counterargument to this might be all the sweet asian and indian and other-nationality people that get involved with science and tech stuff like this: diversity is not an upper-class thing; diversity is not something that the rich and successful get to try to pull into their circles so they feel justified; i am convinced that true diversity is actually a result and fruit of social justice. diversity not just among race but among class, among experience, among hearts.
we need a Robin Hood of the tech world. that's what i think.
“there is nothing better for a person,” Solomon says repeatedly in Ecclesiastes, “than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil." if people have no toil (and i am thinking "people" in terms of "majority of the world's human population," not "a specific select individual or group"). robbing people of this is robbing them of that which for them "there is nothing better."
besides, in I, Robot, and Eagle Eye, the robot takes over and everything goes wrong. i don't know why the answer is to make better, safer technology, than to just not make it wrong in the first place (and if that entails not making it at all, then so be it, you have other things that are worth your time, like, for example, taking care of people). also, in movies like this, it's good drama, right (i'm not saying i wasn't engrossed by either of these films)? and humankind wins out. which i actually am ready to say is a mark of our selfishness, as well. we like making problems for ourselves because we like having something to say we got over and conquered and saved.
the irony: our hero's complex in light of this. we "like" saving people, ideologically, but we won't actually take responsibility to do it. we'll do it in the movies, but all our actual actions run counter to it. because we're impatient? because we're egotistical? because we're prideful? because we let our good intentions get the better of us? because we won't take the time to truly think about our neighbor? because we're just plain sinful?
all of the above, and more.
thank you God for grace; oh, that we would cling to that before anything else, and that our actions and creations would match it, because we can only create something that truly does good for others if we do it through and for you.
i'm pretty sure all this does is teach people to rely less on their own actions and responsibilities. i know the thinking is "well if we can get a robot to do these things, then we can think about bigger and better things and it's actually better for everyone!!!" it's actually not.
a lot of why i think this has to do with outsourcing. getting robots to do things for us just reduces the need for human jobs. people will say things like, "well, you just get someone to run the robot or technology etc." problems with that:
1. it makes the person who is running the thing actually lazier (i.e. toll booth people. all they have to do is like, push a button and take your money), which contributes both to an obesity epidemic as well as intellectual scarcity. when all someone has to do is run a program or a system, they don't get to exercise creativity, and they don't get to do the physical work of thinking or making or actually working - all of which are essential to human existence, i believe.
2. you're still catering to people with that know-how, since having to get people educated and teach them how to work that technology takes a lot of time, and the whole point of making technology and robots is efficiency in the first place (though i would be inclined to say that pride is an ugly stepsister of efficiency; part of it's like, "look how efficient we are;" the other part is "look how cool this is!" if it's not capable of being used well, we'll still say it's "cool," which i think is settling for a lesser good. however "cool" it is that x or y can happen / work / etc, it's more cool if that can be used to help everyone. i also think there's some sense to "wow, look what we can do!" like we're sooo impressed with ourselves. like we forget that "there is nothing new under the sun" (ecclesiastes), like we forget that "all things are possible in God" (matthew, mark, corinthians). we are always sitting back, making technology we don't have the spiritual stability to consistently use well, and talking about how awesome we are because of it.
3. as a result of 2., we maintain, globally, a third-world crisis; the gap between the rich and the poor grows greater and greater because the rich, instead of selecting from the poor to (educate, train, give jobs to, provide a livelihood for, give skills and funds to run their family and their community appropriately and well, etc), they select the lesser of the silicon valley yuppies. all these little computer-science interns get jobs where they get to mindlessly (see #1) run high-tech science equipment simply because it's "good on a resume" or will get them "in" with the upper realm of science, and maybe because they think it's "cool" (see #2), and community is maintained specifically and locally within a field as opposed to globally, cross-culturally, cross-demographically. aaauuuughhh the homogeny kills me. classic example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. why would we do anything without seeing how many people we can help in the process? why does the greater good suffer for the sake of expediency?
side note, in thinking that a counterargument to this might be all the sweet asian and indian and other-nationality people that get involved with science and tech stuff like this: diversity is not an upper-class thing; diversity is not something that the rich and successful get to try to pull into their circles so they feel justified; i am convinced that true diversity is actually a result and fruit of social justice. diversity not just among race but among class, among experience, among hearts.
we need a Robin Hood of the tech world. that's what i think.
“there is nothing better for a person,” Solomon says repeatedly in Ecclesiastes, “than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil." if people have no toil (and i am thinking "people" in terms of "majority of the world's human population," not "a specific select individual or group"). robbing people of this is robbing them of that which for them "there is nothing better."
besides, in I, Robot, and Eagle Eye, the robot takes over and everything goes wrong. i don't know why the answer is to make better, safer technology, than to just not make it wrong in the first place (and if that entails not making it at all, then so be it, you have other things that are worth your time, like, for example, taking care of people). also, in movies like this, it's good drama, right (i'm not saying i wasn't engrossed by either of these films)? and humankind wins out. which i actually am ready to say is a mark of our selfishness, as well. we like making problems for ourselves because we like having something to say we got over and conquered and saved.
the irony: our hero's complex in light of this. we "like" saving people, ideologically, but we won't actually take responsibility to do it. we'll do it in the movies, but all our actual actions run counter to it. because we're impatient? because we're egotistical? because we're prideful? because we let our good intentions get the better of us? because we won't take the time to truly think about our neighbor? because we're just plain sinful?
all of the above, and more.
thank you God for grace; oh, that we would cling to that before anything else, and that our actions and creations would match it, because we can only create something that truly does good for others if we do it through and for you.
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