The general philosophy about new tech seems to be if we got it abuse it. Don’t just use it sensibly. Push it to the limits. I am mainly talking here about media-related technologies that can amplify fringe sentiments, opinions, and frailties to a status they don’t deserve. We’ve given a megaphone to idiots and told them it’s right to shout indiscriminately anytime, and about anything they want. After all if it’s loud, has 1200 followers, it must make sense!
When I was a young folksinger, Washington Square in New York City was a popular place to perform and present. A typical Sunday would find singers, poets, and people literally on soapboxes proclaiming their positions on everything and anything. You were free to walk away if what you heard did not please you.
Thanks to technology, it’s harder to walk away. We’ve allowed the construction of a chimera of huge and largely uncontrolled proportions. It’s the traditional soapbox combined with new technology that allows any strident voice to overwhelm. The most fringe element can now dominate attention through public media outlets where people share memes and posts.
It’s not that technology is bad per se. It’s that we can’t seem to put new things in their proper places. We have to elevate them to be centerpieces, whether they are worthy of that status or not. To be clever, we search for memes to post. To slightly inflame the social networks, we post inflammatory material. It feeds our need for attention, which is not necessarily bad, but it goes beyond the limits of common sense. So we allow the obscure, bigoted, racist, and just plain perverse to run wild.
Does it make sense? Is it anywhere within the limits of common sense? As Mark Twain is said to have quipped, there is nothing common about common sense.
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I’ve been thinking of this a lot in a slightly different context. The other day I saw a guy riding his bike — helmetless — down my street which is a US HWY — not looking at the road but looking at his phone. Today I saw a woman rollerblading (a sport I loved!!!) staring at her phone as she went down the sidewalk. I did the use grumble grumble then I remembered being on that gurney in the ER and needed to call the vet to tell her what happened and ask if she could give Bear a Bordatella shot before they closed because Bear had to go to the kennel. My curmudgeonly brain said, “Let it go.” As you see from reading this, I haven’t. I still think those young people were stupid but they’ll find out as we all did, the hard way. I just hope it doesn’t kill them
Funny, I’ve been thinking of this too, like Martha has, in a different context. My thoughts are about AI generated images and videos and audio, and how good they are getting. I was GOT the other day, when a TikTok video came across my screen from an account of two Black female firefighters, and they were asking for support. I hearted it, and went to the comments to say, “Of course you have my support.” But on the way, I read other comments, and someone said, “This is AI.” So I went back to the video, and sure enough, one of the fingers on one of the women’s hands kept periodically disappearing. Man, that one was good! I looked at the other videos of these two characters on that same account, and they are all good. It’s probably not the first time I got got, and will certainly not be the last time. I was so embarrassed.
But it made me start thinking about how long it will take before society becomes savvy to this new toy, like all the others. We will use it for worthless endeavors, such as tricking people into liking a post, and maybe for nefarious endeavors, to trick people into giving money or signing a petition, or for evil endeavors, such as making people shocked, scared and furious enough to vote a dictator wanna be into the presidency. But one day we will have learned how to spot them, and turn on our AI blocking software developed in the year 2029, and get on with our lives.
All your points are great, and well thought out. I wonder if you’ve been following the news over at X. Their new director has added a feature that allows you to see the nation of origin for the account you are reading. Surprise! Many of the favored right-wing and phony health care accounts aren’t from Mississippi or Arkansas! They originate in Russia, Uzbekistan, or India. There is a big, nasty reaction on some sites to the big reveal.
I heard about that on BBC I think, or APM, and wow, what a reveal! I am not on X, so I have missed seeing it in real time.
I stay away from X, but read the report in either the NY Times or the Washington Post.
Common sense, which you may agree, is perfectly obvious the moment it enters the room carrying a clipboard and a whistle, turns out—after we follow it obediently down the hallway, past the exit, through a broom closet, and into a locked basement labeled DO NOT THINK—is neither common nor sensible, but merely a hat that shouts directions while the building quietly burns.