Humans Are the Signal, but Tech Treats Us as the Noise
When we autotune reality to digital perfection, what matters about human beings gets lost
It’s hard for human beings to oppose the dominance of digital technology when we are becoming so highly digital ourselves. Whether by fetish or mere habit, we begin acting in ways that accommodate or imitate our machines, remaking our world and, eventually, ourselves in their image.
For instance, the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles are encouraging cities to make their streets and signals more compatible with the navigation and sensor systems of the robotic cars, changing our environment to accommodate the needs of the robots with which we will be sharing the streets, sidewalks, and, presumably, air space. This isn’t so bad in itself, but if history is any guide, remaking the physical world to accommodate a new technology — such as the automobile — favors the companies selling the technologies more than the people living alongside them. Highways divided neighborhoods, particularly when they reinforced racial and class divisions. Those who couldn’t adapt to crosswalks and traffic signals were labeled “jaywalkers” and ridiculed in advertisements.
Today, we are in the process of making our physical, social, and media environments more friendly to…
