A More Positive View

Globally, I appreciated and found fascinating (and comforting) Thompson’s discussion of how technology in the digital age is shaping our cognition, social spheres, and education for the better. Although I found his writing style overly anecdotal, it struck me that Thompson provided a rich, well-thought and evidenced argument for how technology—from the internet to artificial intelligences—will improve humanity, rather than how society will “cope” or “adapt” to increasing technology.

It seems, lines of technology-doubting thought emerge heavily in humanities departments. Perhaps because the studies of English, History, Literature, and so forth rely on extensive examinations of previous texts and ancient lines of thought, individuals working, learning, and writing within those environments more often recognize the value of past influences rather than future ones.

Especially after reading The Filter Bubble, Thompson’s discussion was a refreshing new look

at technology, and his conclusion, that when we face increasingly sophisticated and powerful tools for seeking answers we need to “think of harder questions” (p. 290) struck me as insightful and timely.

An element I particularly appreciated was how Thompson showed that technology plus humans was a far more powerful, valuable, and influential force than simply technology alone. From his “centaur” computer-human chess playing teams, to the January 25th Egyptian citizen revolts, technology was shown to empower humans, from acting as a thinking-extension to providing a global communication forum, rather than taking on an independent or formidable identity of its own. Speaking of the chess teams, he writes “Because Cranton and Stephen were expert at collaborating with computers, they knew when to rely on the machine’s advice” (p. 4). Same with the teenage girls protesting the beef imports, or the Shifang citizens successfully stopping the copper plant construction, Thompson seems to conclude that humans already posses the capability and courage to accomplish notable feats, they often just lack firepower. And technology offers just that.

As Thompson discussed “lifelogging,” I remembered a recent interaction. My twenty-something friend offhandedly mentioned his high school Twitter account one day, as it related to the conversation, saying he rarely checked it anymore. Curious, and motivated by the fact that we new friends but had spent a fair amount of time together, I was interested in what this social media account would reveal about him. After tracking it down, for he had forgotten the username, I scrolled through his Tweets and laughed somewhat astonishedly and reproachfully as I read snippets of sexist blunt humor, dissatisfaction for his living situation, thoughtful musings on life and God, and (my personal favorite), “See so many people with rings on their fingers these days...won’t catch me ending my life on purpose.” As you can imagine, I was slightly offended and put off by his comments, because my current conception of him was of a sweet, sarcastic but also respectful, motivated, and content human being. To my objections, he replied, “You can’t be mad at my 18-year old self!” And, of course, he was right.

As human beings, we should have the right to permeability, to change. That version of my friend was one that no longer existed, although remnants of his fieryness and snark certainly lived on, elements I had come to appreciate. But the fact I could, through some snooping, pull up a laundry list of Tweets written by his overly-confident-jock-high-school-rebellious-self speaks to an unfortunate aspect of technology and the Internet. If less forgotten does not equal more remembered (p. 33), the Internet has an uncanny knack for remembering that which should, in time, perhaps be forgotten.

A conversation often sidestepped in
discussion on Artificial Intelligences...

Of course, technology will never be “natural,” but I think that as it continues to progress, it will amplify natural elements of humanity (like brain power, courage, etc.), rather than disrupt natural orders like time passing and old versions of ourselves being remade to the present. Thompson writes, “The future of public thinking hinges on our ability to create tools that bring out our best” (p. 76) The wide array of technological benefits, from increasing the production of writing to uniting marginalized individuals around social causes to strengthening connection and weak ties through ambient awareness all point towards a powerful future with possibility. We have the brains, technology might just provide the firepower and processing ability we need to reach an even greater potential.