Industry and Design
Making a solid case in favour of industrial design is easy. It involves little human effort in the manufacturing process, reliable repetitive production and allows a 24 hour work day. It’s a cheap labour free means of production but does this mean it’s correct?
This isn’t a new concept by any means, for generations humans have outdone themselves with machinery. As the industrial revolution came around, work rates and production speeds accelerated and multiplied at an incredible pace. However this came at the cost of cutting down the input of staff and switching to a more industrial method of production, leading to less skilled workers hence a lower rate of pay which in turn led to an influx of child workers.
It’s a similar story today, now we see advanced computers or artificial intelligence replacing the jobs once occupied by humans. Professor Stephen Hawking is of the belief that we need to be careful and take care when designing artificial intelligence stating “ Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity.” This is of particular significance to humanity as we should not make the same mistakes designing AI now as we did in the industrial revolution which wasn’t realised or designed properly. Due in part mostly to a lack of knowledge (the negatives of industrial production) the industrial revolution happened in a more sporadic and unrestricted way, leading to where we are today, trying to replenish and restore the waste created by the industrial revolution. Hawking states “I fear that AI may replace humans altogether…” highlighting that humans need to tread carefully when it comes to designing and producing the latest technology.
With the invention of the smart phone and its integration and optimisation to be used on the web, it reduces the need for us to properly ‘look’ for things when we have the information readily available in our pockets leading to the redundancy to some extent of libraries, newspapers etc. You would expect this development of technology to lead to a less wasteful culture, more people using screens means less paper needed for print and you would be correct, but like the industrial revolution there is a major problem with how we design things. In the case of the industrial revolution, we did not appreciate and weren’t fully aware of the finite resources of the earth. In the case of today’s technology, our single biggest drawback is greed in the form of planned obsolescence.
Planned obsolescence is a favourite marketing trick used by technology giants to phase out the use of one piece of hardware and software by deliberately shortening the products lifespan in an effort to drive the sales of the newer models up by a consumer replacing their device. One of the world leaders in combating waste, France began an investigation into Apple’s apparent use of planned obsolescence, becoming the third country to do so but the first country where developing planned obsolescence in the aims of promoting a future product is illegal. Investigative group against planned obsolescence, HOP stated that “The slowing down of older devices seems to have the deliberate aim of pushing Apple customers towards purchasing the new model,” which could result in 5% of the companies annual turnover being seized by French authorities. The accusations of the ‘slowing down’ of phones becomes more harrowing when the timings of reduced performance in one phone happen to coincide nicely with the next release.
Considering the materials that go into making a phones circuit board, copper, aluminium, gold etc, this is an extremely wasteful and disrespectful marketing ploy if proven true. It highlights a disregard by a company adored by many and will continue being adored by many and therein lies the problem. Corporations must always appease their shareholders first before addressing the footprint they’re leaving on the world. Money and private wealth takes precedence over a healthier means of production, attitudes need to change.
