
Algorithm and Blues: The Tyranny of the Coming Smart-Tech Utopia - raleighm
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/publications/algorithm-and-blues-tyranny-coming-smart-tech-utopia
======
bem94
> Most people do not subscribe fully or exclusively to the ideals embedded in
> the smart-tech utopian vision, yet they’ll have no choice but to live by
> those ideals.

All too true. The kinds of comment like "but they can just not use X" always
appear in the context of Facebook/Google (often when they appear on HN). But
that's like saying you should just "not use CCTV". I'm not a user of
FB/Google/Smart Tech, it uses me, and when it is deployed pervasively, it
becomes by definition, impossible to avoid. I can't stop my friends getting an
Alexa / Siri / Google Home thing, so I can't help coming into contact with
them.

We can't have it both ways. Making tech / apps / etc addictive or
indispensable or "impossible to live without" (once you've had it a few weeks
and so do your friends), and then asserting people can "just not use it" is
contradiction 101. As a corpus of people, I think we engineers need to look
much harder at the world we are building and the constraints / motivators that
are causing us to do it.

~~~
MrMember
"Smart speakers" are getting to be everywhere and it really makes me
uncomfortable. Like if I book a hotel I now have to remember to check if one
is installed so I can unplug/disable it. Or if I'm at someone's house I have
to decide if I want to look like a tinfoil wearing loony and ask them to
unplug it or just accept that everything I say gets sent to some remote
server.

~~~
nerdponx
One of the truly sad aspects of this phenomenon is that smart speakers, in
principle _are totally fucking cool_. That's literally Star Trek technology!
You have a cheery computer you can boss around! Except now corporate greed had
to shit all over it.

It would be one thing if the Alexa was free... but they actually _charge_ for
the thing, and they don't even develop their own apps/skills, that's on the
community.

~~~
humanrebar
> Except now corporate greed had to shit all over it.

One of the big plot holes of the Star Trek universe is that money and
bartering would ever go away (they ended up back tracking in a major way on
this) or that anything like the Federation would ever be as benevolent or
magnanimous as it is portrayed.

That is, I don't think taking corporations or greed out of it will make the
tech better. People are people, whether they report to the Minister of Stuff
or the Chief Whatever Officer.

~~~
Nasrudith
Personally I don't see it as a plothole so much as not receiving sufficient
backstory justification - or doing so not fitting the genre well.

Like if the earth spent a while as a cyberpunk dystopia and had "ancestors" of
Augments who had lesser issues but were used to give the elites a self-
perpetuating edge writ large, disregarded space as having no profit, and
refused to provide any welfare despite a pitance of their production being
required to prevent horrific suffering could give justification for why the
federation is so radical on certain issues and why Ferngari would consider
Wall Street worthy of pilgrimage - awed that humans of all species once
"bested" them. Granted that should probably be regarded with about as
foreigners visiting sites of travesties to celebrate them.

~~~
spicymaki
The Star Trek universe provided ample backstory to this over various series
and several movies: [http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/World_War_III](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/World_War_III)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Also Past Tense[1] for some history prior to WWIII.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Sp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_\(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine\))

------
iamcasen
This is such a conundrum. When I really sit down and think about all the
modern tech in my life, and how much of it is a promise to make my life
easier, I can't help but laugh. The modern world is far more complicated and
difficult to navigate than ever before. Each new piece of tech just adds to
it.

Now we have to know how to navigate healthcare.gov to understand our insurance
options, understand email, text, and all other smart phone etiquette. We need
to know how to scan our own items at the store, how to use GPS and other touch
systems in our vehicles, and know how to use multiple operating systems on
computers, tablets, and other devices.

It is never ending! In 20 years, I imagine most engineers and computer
scientists won't really be able to understand the scope of all tech we need on
a daily basis. Technology will eventually become the equivalent of a magic
crystal we carry in our pocket, but have no clue what it's source of power is
or how it functions. Technologists will effectively become wizards! Without
those wizards, the tech-powered society would crumble into dust.

The author is right that most people will effectively become automatons,
mindlessly obeying the little taps and chimes of their tech-addled existence.
They wouldn't have a choice of course, unless they are one of the few capable
of obtaining a couple masters degrees in STEM.

~~~
tjr225
I think it goes even further than that. In my day to day use of my smartphone,
even, an iPhone 7, I find the experience largely unpleasant. Even what is
essentially just a touch screen computer connected to the internet seems to
have all sorts of unpredictable and strange reactions to my inputs. Or it will
do something strange without any input at all.

I would argue that the future we have created with technology is still mostly
pretty janky - and we give the tech too much credit.

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maerF0x0
When technology goes well it provides tons of value and becomes invisible.
Like the layers in an OS or 1000s of parts in a car for example.

The complaints that life is more complex than before usually fail to compare
it to the complexity of things we're accomplishing and what that could have
looked like 50,500, 500 0 years ago...

made up example: Communicate with someone on the other side of the planet...

Now: type a message or skype, instantaneous, searchable, recorded backup...

\- 50 yrs ago, make an international telephone call. Its unclear, not
recorded, difficult to verify(securely) who you're talking with etc.

\- 500 yrs ago, write, if you can, on some paper and send it via horses or
merchants... who knows if its delivered or if an answer is coming

\- 5000 yrs ago. No. You can only talk with people in your village unless
you're wealthy, royal or otherwise powerful.

~~~
infecto
This makes an assumption that there is value from being able to talk to
someone on the other side of the planet.

I am not trying to argue that it does or does not. Just that we are operating
on that assumption. I could see the counter example that a simpler life could
be a more fulfilling.

~~~
logicchains
Clearly there is value to some people, as evidenced by them doing it.

------
throwawayjava
I think the point at the end of the article is reasonable. But the argument in
the middle is a tad silly.

The idea that modern annoyances (sitting in traffic, waiting in checkout
lines, searching/browsing for information) are somehow essential to the human
experience is super weird given that most of these things have only been
around for 50ish years in their current form and less than 1,000 years in any
form.

If I didn't have house chores or a commute, then I could spend a lot more time
learning new pieces of Mathematics. Or work through the rest of the half-
finished anatomy textbook on my bookshelf. Or finally get around to building a
digital simulation of a human heart. Or start a garden. Or just hang out with
a coffee at the hackerspace or coffee shop or church basement.

There are a lot of opportunities for serendipity, many ways to build grit, and
infinite opportunities to socialize.

Sitting on a 1950's style cement highway for 30 minutes to go to a mall where
I stand in the 1960's style Macy's checkout line is not the end-all and be-all
of what it means to be human. That lifestyle an odd cultural aberration unique
to the 20th and early 21st century.

The idea that doing dishes or vacuuming or driving a car in rush hour traffic
are necessary to experience serendipity or frustration or boredom is a truly
tyrannical vision of what it means to be human.

It's certainly true that we're not headed for a tech utopia (or dystopia), and
that new technologies will have unintended and probably negative consequences
(in addition to positive consequences).

But I'm not worried about ending commutes or killing the modern grocery
shopping experience. Those things are inessential to the human experience and
a net drag on society.

~~~
coldtea
> _The idea that modern annoyances (sitting in traffic, waiting in checkout
> lines, searching /browsing for information) are somehow essential to the
> human experience is super weird given that most of these things have only
> been around for 50ish years in their current form and less than 1,000 years
> in any form._

There two ways (at least) that the argument can still be perfectly valid:

1) Recentness or not doesn't matter. Women vote and no slavery/segregation are
also recent things that have also "only been around for 50ish years" (or close
enough), but one would presumably still consider them essential.

2) The gist of the argument is probably not about those particular annoyances
per se, but about having annoyances (or non-optimizations or room for error,
etc) in general (all of which are driven away by technology).

~~~
throwawayjava
Women's suffrage and laws prohibiting slavery are modern but are not modern
_annoyances_.

Your second point is already addressed: learning a new field of mathematics or
science can be deeply frustrating and requires grit. The automation of daily
chores does not necessitate the death of annoyance or grit.

Just like people still work hard every day even though farming highly
automated.

------
_bxg1
"There’s more that matters about being human than happiness"

I would go a step further and argue that happiness itself requires that
friction, and can't be optimized or quantified. It's human nature to grow
discontent and even depressed when given any kind of constancy for too long,
no matter how "perfect". The idea that you can use social-engineering to
perfect human happiness isn't just incomplete, it's fundamentally broken.

~~~
antidesitter
_happiness... can’t be optimized or quantified_

Neither of these is true in my experience. Happiness definitely _can_ be
optimized by changing your lifestyle (less stressful work, more free time, a
healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep, etc). To see it from the other
direction, consider how events like onset of chronic pain and permanent
disabilities negatively impact long-term happiness.

~~~
_bxg1
Obviously happiness can be _increased_ , but it can't be _solved_. You can't
get yourself, much less all of society, to a particular place and just say
"welp, that's it, perfect happiness is achieved forever". Not with infinite
resources and political power could you do this. It goes against human nature.

