On
this somber day, let me add my voice to those who have vowed to “never forget”
the atrocities that occurred ten years ago and to work toward a better, more
peaceful world. I was teaching a computer lab on 9/11/2001 and, as usual, not every student was being studious
and following the worksheet instructions. In fact several were on the Internet
and following the news. That’s how I first learned at 9:15 AM that an airplane had crashed into one of the World
Trade towers setting it afire. As the drama unfolded, the second tower was hit
and it was apparent we were under attack. The students were agitated (especially a young
man from Egypt
That
said, I want to explore the question: Does computer technology bring us
together or does it isolate us? In the short story, “The Machine Stops” by E.M.
Forster, written about 100 years ago, all humanity lives underground
(presumably because of some environmental disaster) in separate hive-like
cells. All of their needs are attended to by the “Machine” --- what we’d
currently call a Computer. Everyone has a “plate” in their room through which
they can communicate with everyone else on the planet --- today we’d call that
the Internet or the Web. Forster’s
cautionary tale is a dire warning against becoming so isolated from each other
and so dependent on a Machine so complex that no single person fully
understands how it works or how to fix it if it breaks. Hello? Does any of this
sound familiar? As you might guess, the outcome of this story is not pleasant
but it does end on the hopeful note that we might be able to start over and
recover our humanity.
On
a related note, a recent Speak Out contributor has pointed out that while
technology has certainly made many of our tasks easier, it is also responsible
for displacing jobs formerly held by human beings. This raises an interesting
question: does the automation made possible by technology decrease the amount
of human jobs or does it actually increase them? Does it destroy more than it
creates?
Certainly,
one could argue that the quality and the pay of the jobs that automation
creates are usually better than the jobs they replace. A software engineer who uses computer
technology to design automobiles is a much more creative and high-paying job
than the assembly-line worker (who is also being replaced by technology). However,
it is not generally possible to retrain a worker on the line to become a
software engineer. And the situation is more muddled. Even the software
designer relies on automated tools to make her/his job easier and more
effective and no humans are displaced in the process. And, to make matters more
muddy, there is no definitive research data indicating whether automation, in
the long run, creates more jobs than it destroys. There is, however some
research which seems to confirm the hypothesis that automation is more
beneficial to skilled workers with more
education and/or experience than to unskilled ones. This means that those least
likely to benefit from automation are those that probably have the greater
needs. Not such a bad situation if you believe in Ayn Rand’s economic philosophy
but a terrible state if you tend more towards Karl Marx. In any case since
computers are much more effective than humans in performing repetitive and
often boring jobs, the writing seems to be on the wall.
It
is also clear that this is a complex problem, so it is well to remember the
words of that great journalist/philosopher Henry Lewis Mencken, “For every complex problem there is
an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
