Losing Our Humanity
In the movie Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays one of the foremost scientists in the area of artificial intelligence working toward the Singularity, or what he calls transcendence?—?the point in time when machines develop a true super intelligence. The plot centers around the debate over artificial intelligence and what happens when a machine learns to “think” for itself, and though this isn’t the only movie to frighten us with doom and gloom predictions of artificial intelligence and its war with humanity, (see I, Robot, the Terminator movies, The Matrix trilogy, and others) this movie is somewhat unique. In this movie, artificial intelligence arrives via the uploading of a human consciousness to a machine.
While exploring the questions and potential dangers of artificial intelligence, this movie also addresses another less popular (but not less important) side of the issue: what happens when a human becomes a machine? And while today there is a lot of debate about the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence (most recently a “disagreement” between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg) maybe we should give some consideration to this other issue and ask the question: “In our implementation and utilization of technology are we losing our humanity?” In other words, by using machines are we turning into them or at the very least becoming more like them?
What’s in a medium
In the late 1960’s, a communication scholar named Marshall McLuhan gained notoriety by popularizing his aphorism “the medium is the message.” In a recent article here on Medium, Gary Vaynerchuk took the opposite stance of McLuhan and stated “It’s The Message Not The Medium.” And while I applaud @garyvee’s incredible knowledge of digital media and digital marketing, and while I understand that the intent of his article is to promote the benefits of new media and recognize the world will not stay the same and we must embrace the new technological changes and advancements, I think there is an area of this that we should explore a bit more.
I agree that the message is important. I agree that we cannot stay in the age of the telegraph. I agree that TV seems close to the dinosaur status that recently took out the typewriter and home telephone. I would even bet that McLuhan himself understood technological progress in much the same way. But what McLuhan meant by his aphorism is that in the larger context, we are more affected by the medium than by the message. The content (message) is less important than the medium that carries it. And in today’s Google age where “content is king,” maybe we should focus our attention a bit more on the medium.
Medium Bias
Harold Innis wrote the book The Bias of Communication where he proposed that each medium has its own internal bias. His theory states that each communication medium contains its own particular bias in terms of the organization and control of information the medium allows. Certain media allow for certain types of information while limiting other types.
He gives the examples of time-biased and space-biased media. Time biased media, such as stone and clay tablets, lent themselves to greater longevity based upon their durability and constancy. And while their lifespan was long, the same characteristics that allowed them to last over time prevented them from traveling over space. Stone tablets are not the best media for postal workers. On the other hand, space-biased media like papyrus and paper are easily and efficiently transported but they don’t last long over time.
In the same way, each type of medium has a bias that allows certain types of information to be communicated while also preventing other types of information from being communicated. Native American smoke signals can be seen for miles but have difficulty in communicating a philosophical argument. Television’s bias is entertainment. If the show doesn’t get the ratings, e.g. if it doesn’t “entertain” and capture the attention of an audience, the advertisers dry up and the show gets cut from the network schedule. Twitter’s character limit allows quick and speedy posts but can only link to long form content while long form Blog content can be too much to read at certain times.
Digital media also have other underlying biases. In a Fast Company article, Douglas Rushkoff recognizes within digital media a bias of distinction, based on digital logic which trickles up into society from the digital platforms and apps that our cultures uses regularly. He states “digital networks break up our messages into tiny packets, and reassemble them on the other end. Computer programs all boil down to a series of 1’s and 0’s, on or off.” This distinction in the digital medium?—?a polar opposite bias?—?creates a milieu defined by a greater tribalism, a more pronounced nationalism (or what he calls in a separate interview “anti-globalism,” and I would add, a more contentious partisanship). We find ourselves in the contemporary digital environment where “each choice we make is noticed and acted upon by the algorithms personalizing our news feeds, further isolating each one of us in our own ideological filter bubble.” What digital media surreptitiously does, just like all other media before it, is systematically restructure the way we think.
Media and Thought
What we rarely notice about our use of media is how, through utilizing them in our daily lives, they restructure the way we think, they reform our neurological paths. This isn’t about the content though the content can help to change our perspectives on things, but this is about how our senses and the neural networks engaged by those senses change when utilizing different types of media. Neil Postman in his book Technopoly relates how our media?—?the communication technologies and information systems?—?affect our culture by altering the ways in which we think. Each medium has its own particular definition of reality whether it be speech, print, image, photograph or video, and in defining reality in their particular ways, each medium also organizes and controls the way we think by altering and reforming our sensory ratios. This fact usually escapes our notice because we concern ourselves with the content presented to us through the medium and not with how the medium itself works to force us to think in its own particular way.
Lewis Mumford also shows how technologies influence the thought (and action) patterns of humanity. In referencing the technological development of the mechanical clock by the Benedictine monasteries of the 12th and 13th Centuries, Mumford states that the invention of the clock “helped to give human enterprise the regular collective beat and rhythm of the machine; for the clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of synchronizing the actions of men.” The introduction of the mechanical clock and the ordering of time made possible the 8 hour workday necessary for the division of labor and the Industrial Revolution. This wasn’t the only factor of course, but suffice it to say that without a clock, there can be no Industrial Revolution. The point being that media do not simply carry content?—?they area content in themselves with certain biases, predispositions and values that affect the user. The medium is the message precisely because the medium restructures how we think.
How to Remain Human in a World of Machines
If machines and technologies have particular biases and in utilizing them, they reform us into their image by restructuring our thoughts in accordance with their particular values, we might consider how we should defend ourselves against becoming more like the machine. So what steps can we take. Though there are many, I propose three to get started.
1. Embrace a critical perspective of technology.
When I say critical perspective, I don’t mean to become a technophobe or a Luddite. I don’t mean destroy the smart phones or boycott Instagram. What I mean is open your eyes and realize what’s going on with each new technological progress. Be aware of how a technological medium works to force you to think in its own particular way. And don’t just accept technologies because all the major corporations say we should. As Neil Postman once said, with the introduction of every technology, there are winners and there are losers. And it’s in the best interest of the winners to convince the losers that they are really winning. So it’s in Facebook’s best interest to convince us that using their platform will make us rich and famous. It may, but the fact of the matter is that with Facebook, as with every social media platform, we are not the users as much as we are the product. We give them our content for free and they, then sell us to their advertisers. Again, this doesn’t mean don’t use these platforms. Just be aware of what’s going on and take advantage where you can.
2. Use technology, don’t be used by technology.
When we embrace technologies to utilize them for the benefit of humanity. When we employ them as tools for business and to make an easier life for ourselves, we are doing well. However, there is a fine line that we must guard against when we use technologies because they have a tendency to use us for their own ends. The advance of big data along with our loss of privacy is giving a greater ability for companies to use our own information against us. Again, beware of what is going on. Have you ever wondered why an ad on a web page showed up for that product you just searched for on Amazon. It’s because they are collecting that information on us and we are willingly giving it to them. Pretty soon, you will be talking to someone in your house, Alexa will overhear your conversation about your need for a new couch, and pop-up ads will show up on your twitter feed for a couch that matches your stylistic preferences. For all I know this is happening now.
3. Spend time with other human beings.
To a certain extent, we may have an aversion to communicating with other people, especially those we don’t know particularly well. (If this is you and you have trouble entering conversations, read about the Absolutely Awesome Topic of Conversation You Need To Know.) And while even in the past, we read our books on the subway where now we scroll through our Facebook feed, and we generally kept to ourselves in unfamiliar situations, to connect with other people at a very basic inter-human level is a defense against the values of the machine. Human dialogue is diametrically opposed to the technical priority of efficient information transfer. Human dialogue is complex. It is characterized by meta-messages and nonverbal cues which are many times at odds with one another. It’s as the popular quote says, an enigma wrapped up in a mystery. But communicating with someone in an authentic dialogue brings us back to something uniquely human and very different than that of the machine.
I don’t mean to come across in this essay as one who is anti-technology. I’m a believer in the possibilities and benefits of technology. I host a podcast and write a blog and even have all the social media accounts (though I confess my Pinterest game needs work), but at the same time I try to see the line between human and machine and I strive to remain on the human side of that.
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