Thursday, January 7 (class 26)
Is the Unabomber right?
BEFORE CLASS:
1. Participate in online discussion.
2. Watch this.
3. Read this.
Demonstrate active engagement by sharing three or more Medium notes.
The Unabomber Was Right
Kevin Kelly (2011)
Ted Kaczynski, the convicted bomber who blew up dozens of technophilic professionals, was right about one thing: technology has its own agenda. The technium is not, as most people think, a series of individual artifacts and gadgets for sale. Rather, Kaczynski, speaking as the Unabomber, argued that technology is a dynamic holistic system. It is not mere hardware; rather it is more akin to an organism. It is not inert, nor passive; rather the technium seeks and grabs resources for its own expansion. It is not merely the sum of human action, but in fact it transcends human actions and desires. I think Kaczynski was right about these claims. In his own words the Unabomber says: “The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity.”
I too argue that the technium is guided by “technical necessity.” That is, baked into the nature of this vast complex of technological systems are self-serving aspects — technologies that enable more technology, and systems that preserve themselves — and also inherent biases that lead the technium in certain directions, outside of human desire. Kaczynski writes “modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the ‘bad’ parts of technology and retain only the ‘good’ parts.”
The truth of Kaczynski’s observations does not absolve him of his murders, or justify his insane hatred. Kaczynski saw something in technology that caused him to lash out with violence, but despite his mental imbalance, he was able to articulate that view with surprising clarity his sprawling, infamous 35,000-word manifesto. Kaczynski murdered three people (and injured 23 more) in order to get this manifesto published. His despicable desperation and crimes hide a critique that has gained a minority following by other luddites. The center section of his argument is clear, remarkably so, given his cranky personal grievances against leftists that bookend his rant. Here, in meticulous, scholarly precision, Kaczynski makes his primary claim that “freedom and technological progress are incompatible,” and that therefore technological progress must be undone.
As best I understand, the Unabomber’s argument goes like this:
• Personal freedoms are constrained by society, as they must be.
• The stronger that technology makes society, the less freedoms.
• Technology destroys nature, which strengthens technology further.
• This ratchet of technological self-amplification is stronger than politics.
• Any attempt to use technology or politics to tame the system only strengthens it.
• Therefore technological civilization must be destroyed, rather than reformed.
• Since it cannot be destroyed by tech or politics, humans must push industrial society towards its inevitable end of self-collapse.
• Then pounce on it when it is down and kill it before it rises again.
Kaczynski argues that it is impossible to escape the ratcheting clutches of industrial technology for several reasons. One, because if you use any part of it, the system demands servitude; two, because technology does not “reverse” itself, never releasing what is in its hold; and three, because we don’t have a choice of what technology to use in the long run. In his words, from the Manifesto:
The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function. At work, people have to do what they are told to do, otherwise production would be thrown into chaos. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats would disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised their discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom could be eliminated, but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by large organizations is necessary for the functioning of industrial-technological society. The result is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person.
It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item of technology, but, even modre, the system as a whole becomes dependent on it.
When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.
Kaczynski felt so strongly about the last point that he repeated it once more in a different section of his treatise. It is an important criticism. Once you accept that individuals surrender freedom and dignity to “the machine” and that they increasingly have no choice but to do so, then the rest of Kaczynski’s argument flows fairly logically:
But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide. .. Technology will eventually acquire something approaching complete control over human behavior.
Will public resistance prevent the introduction of technological control of human behavior? It certainly would if an attempt were made to introduce such control all at once. But since technological control will be introduced through a long sequence of small advances, there will be no rational and effective public resistance.
I find it hard to argue against this last section. It is true that as the complexity of our built world increases we will necessarily need to rely on mechanical (computerized) means to managing this complexity. We already do. Autopilots fly our very complex flying machines. Algorithms control our very complex communications and electrical grids. And for better or worse, computers control our very complex economy. Certainly as we construct yet more complex infrastructure (location-based mobile communications, genetic engineering, fusion generators, autopilot cars) we will rely further on machines to run them and make decisions. For those services, turning off the switch is not an option. In fact, if we wanted to turn off the internet right now, it would not be easy to do if others wanted to keep it on. In many ways the internet is designed to never turn off.
First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite — just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.
Thorstein Veblen and Technological Determinism (and others)
Niel Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)
For centuries, historians and philosophers have traced, and debated, technology’s role in shaping civilization. Some have made the case for what the sociologist Thorstein Veblen dubbed “technological determinism”. They’ve argued that technological progress, which they see as an autonomous force outside man’s control, has been the primary factor influencing the course of human history. Karl Marx gave voice to this view when he wrote, “The windmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.” Ralph Waldo Emerson put it more crisply: “Things are in the saddle/And ride mankind.” In the most extreme expression of the determinist view, human beings become little more than “the sex organs of the machine world”. McLuhan memorably wrote in the “Gadget Love” chapter of Understanding Media. Our essential role is to produce ever more sophisticated tools to “fecundate machines as bees fecundate plants” until technology has developed the capacity to reproduce itself on its own. At that point, we become dispensable.
What technology wants
Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You (2011)
Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired, wrote perhaps the boldest book articulating the technodeterminist view, What Technology Wants, in which he posits that technology is a “seventh kingdom of life,” a kind of meta-organism with desires and tendencies of its own. Kelly believes that the technium, as he calls it, is more powerful than any of us mere humans. Ultimately, technology — a force that “wants” to eat power and expand choice — will get what it wants whether we want it to or not.
Technodeterminism is alluring and convenient for newly powerful entrepreneurs because it absolves them of responsibility for what they do. Like priests at the altar, they’re mere vessels of a much larger force that it would be futile to resist. They need not concern themselves with the effects of the systems they’ve created. But technology doesn’t solve every problem of its own accord. If it did, we wouldn’t have millions of people starving to death in a world with an oversupply of food.
Technodeterminists like to suggest that technology is inherently good. But despite what Kevin Kelly says, technology is no more benevolent than a wrench or a screwdriver. It’s only good when people make it do good things and use it in good ways. Melvin Kranzberg, a professor who studies the history of technology, put it best nearly thirty years ago, and his statement is now known as Kranzberg’s first law: “Technology is neither good or bad, nor is it neutral.”
Bill Joy and KMD
Bill Joy, WIRED magazine (2000)
The 21st-century technologies — genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) — are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication. I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.
4. Select and examine a link.
Propose a guiding question or share its gist via a Medium note.
The Unabomber
- Industrial society and its future (Theodore Kaczynski, 1995)
- Unabomber land for sale — very secluded (1:08)
- Our shared manifesto (5:45)
Kevin Kelly
Bill Joy
Will technology become human?
- Tim Berners-Lee: ‘Computers are getting smarter. We’re not’ (Telegraph, 2014)
- Computer with human-like learning will program itself (Jacob Arun, New Scientist, 2014) (Links to an external site.)
- Computers using digital footprints are better judges of personality than friends and family (University of Cambridge study, 2015)
- Can a smartphone tell if you’re depressed? (Jordan Pearson, Verge, 2015) (Links to an external site.)
- What happens when your friend’s smartphone can tell that you’re lying (Gary Shapiro, Washington Post, 2014)
- Poll finds 1 in 5 people would have sex with a robot (Charlotte Lyton, Daily Beast, 2014)
- Meet Kara (7:02)
- Sirius founder envisions world of cyber clones, tech med (Rick Jervis, USA Today, 2015)
Ray Kurzweil
- Maybe Ray Kurzweil is wrong (New Yorker, 2012)
- Ray Kurzweil on The Singularity (3:20)
- Ray Kurzweil explains the coming singularity (7:10)
- Ray Kurzweil tells Colbert that people will merge with technology and become a billion times smarter by 2045. (5:39)
- Jason SIlva on The Singularity (4:38)
- Samantha Bee interviews Ray Kurzweil on The Daily Show (4:57)
Additional notes of concern
- Techno-skeptics’ objection growing louder (Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, 2015)
- The Internet’s Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening (Farad Manjoo, NYT, 2015)
- Is the future of music a chip in your brain? (Stephen Witt, WSJ, 2015)
- The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality (Monica Kim, Atlantic, 2015)
- What have we lost in the shift from cigarettes to smartphones? (William Davies, Open Democracy, 2015)
- As Technology Gets Better, Will Society Get Worse (Tim Wu, The New Yorker, 2014)
DURING CLASS:
1. Current events.
Discussion leader: Natalie
2. Assigned reading and video.
Discussion leader: Jannat
3. Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) and Theodore Kaczynski digerati video.
Discussion leader: Sam
Video: Kevin Kelly argues technology is a living system “that wants something”. Ignore error message and watch on Vimeo. (2010)
4. Preview.
- Sunday Story #12
- Homework for Class 27 (Tue Jan 12).
