Remember HAL? Skynet? - Carl Creasman

If those names of previously rogue computer systems that take over their human opponents don’t ring a bell, go rent 2001 – A Space Odyssey or The Terminator.

Both will be a good watch (I prefer Terminator) for a look. Of course, more recently you could imbibe on The Matrix Collection if that suits your need. In any case, the point of the illustration is that often we think that having more and more technology at our fingers will be a good thing. These movies suggest that it is not.

And, the movies illustrate a point made a few months ago by the folks at Fast Company (certainly NOT an “anti-technology” magazine.) There, author Mike Hoban wrote about how The Road to HAL is Paved With Good Intentions. He writes “”I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” This is not a quote from a darkly fanciful sci-fi writer, it is the voice of Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, describing his vision for the company in an August 14 Wall Street Journal.” [ed note–Schmidt was relieved of this position in January of 2011]

Right, Orwell. As in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Remember that scary reality moment when Big Brother is watching all the time and can, and will, take over your life? But wait, you protest, “Google is good.” Uh, yeah, right–take that point up with the Chinese. And, you do know they’re reading your emails, right? Sure, not a human sitting there reading with interest your missive to your boyfriend, but computers, scanning each and every point of your writing. In essence, they own you.

Remember The Minority Report? Do you remember the part where Tom Cruise’s character walks into the mall, and all the advertising screens scan his retina’s to offer him personalized ads? Hoban writes “You go to the shopping center and instead of being accosted by panhandlers, you are accosted by clerks and merchants coming out of the stores to greet you by name because your buzzing and beeping cell phone (“Stop here!”) has told them you are steps away from the store and they are plugged into “Big Data” and have targeted a sale on two items just for you because they know your buying history and have anticipated your need. That’s targeted marketing. Full page ads in newspapers seem so inefficient, so impersonal. So last century. In fact, in the interview CEO Schmidt remarks that the “serendipity” of people finding interesting things in newspapers can be calculated now. “We can actually produce it electronically,” he said.”

Google can do that now. We are merely a few short moments away, due to things like Twitter, Four Square, iPhone, and Android, from that time when your presence is known everywhere, by everyone. There will be no way to shut that off, unless of course you are a dumb, uncool, non-mini-computer user like me.

So, what’s the concern? Isn’t all of this just easier for living? Yes, I suppose, but its also easier to build back into society the very controls that we’ve fought against since the 1600s. Back then, there were other ways of controlling citizens–everything from dictating what job you could have, to where you could live, even to giving up the right to have sex with your wife on your wedding night. That’s right–the concept of primae noctis was a concept that a noble Lord could demand the right of having sex first with a newlywed who was one of his peasants. Historians debate whether this was a “right” that was ever really expressed by some member of the nobility or not (the evidence is mixed and weak) but the idea of the power of the nobility is not in dispute.

While certainly our current technology and the companies behind it would deny having any intention of trying to take us back to a medieval culture with noble lords and peasants, the end result could be the same. As Morpheus and Neo figure out, the entire concept is about control. Since the 1500s, peasants have been working to eliminate the control wielded by a small, powerful elite. The entire American experiment called the United States is grounded in that concept where the people have protection in their rights, and that giving up those rights, even for good ideas like religion, security or ease of life promised by security, is thus going backwards.

I like where Hoban ends his editorial when he states, “Google search (and the others) is simple. MapQuest is simple. LinkedIn is simple. I use them. But where is the tipping point between convenience and intrusion? Between access and excess? Between technological can-do and technological should-do? At least for the near future, I don’t want Google or any other company wanting to be my intimate cyber-buddy and telling me (or even suggesting to me) what I should be doing next. HAL, no.”