Progress?

1. Progress? • Industrial revolution • Steel, coal => energy, physical power to manipulate physical things; start the material consumption of the planet Information age • Telephony, fax, email => communication, storage, processing of information Early 20th century • Networks of electric power – the power grid Now • Networks of information – the Internet • Evolves to the “Google_Grid” at some point (maybe now)

2. Analysing the Effect on Society • Technology is the best understood aspect of the Internet • The social aspect is poorly understood • Speed of change has left scholarly research behind • There currently exist many contradictory viewpoints, e.g.: • Internet radicals: new era of opportunity • Internet sceptics: terrible nightmare, end of society • Data shows that there is now much influence by crowd psychology  especially notable in the Stock Market

3. 9.4 Evaluations of the Impact of Computer Technology Luddites • In England in 1811-1812, people burned factories and mills in efforts to stop the technologies and social changes that were eliminating their jobs.  Many were weavers who worked at home on small machines.  They were called Luddites. • More recently, Luddite has been used to describe people who oppose technological progress, and has been adopted as an honorable term by critics of technology.

4. Understanding the Internet and Society • one of the chief characteristics of the human species: • Conscious communication Social History of Technology shows that • Humans (individuals or via institutions/companies/society) transform technology by appropriating it, modifying it, experimenting with it. Two way process • Humans are affected by the Internet • Humans transform the Internet itself Internet was designed for free communication - BUT - it is malleable • Social outcomes are to be determined by experience, not proclaimed beforehand. This dynamic evolves rapidly and may lead to chaos.

5. Understanding the Internet and Society:the two way process: examples • e-Commerce • Not simply a case of companies making use of the Internet • e-Commerce has transformed the business world: rules and procedures of production, management and economic calculation • Third world development • People proclaim that Internet can help • Columbia: criminals using Internet to distribute threats, extortion • Internet is expression of ourselves in our many flavors

6. Internet Culture – Three Layers Techno-meritocratic culture • Born of big science and academia • Try to dominate world by power of knowledge Virtual communitarian culture • Use Internet for social life rather than technology for its own sake; form thematic circle of friends – not much different than a bridge club. Entrepreneurial culture • Used power that came with technology to make money and hence dominate the world and make the internet the backbone of our lives

7. Clearly all layers Interact • But will there be a winner? • How does the “hacker culture” become important in this? • Three things are clear: • The “Science” Motivations for the Internet as a Research Network are gone • Virtual Communities/Personal Broadcasting space dominates network traffic • The Hacker Culture is now a serious threat

8. Its overall a good thing: • The Positives • Allows for new ways of doing old tasks • Teleworking • Automation • E-Commerce • Research • Greater range of communication • Online convenience = Real World Freedom • Greater depth in communication

9. However, there may well be Loss of Skills and Judgment • Skills vs. Automation • Loss of Skills • Loss of Judgment • Loss of Accountability – it was a computer error – not my fault

10. Loss of Skills due to reliance on technology • Writing, Thinking, and Memory I have a spelling checker. It came with my PC. It plainly marks four my revue, Miss steaks aye can knot sea. Eye ran this poem threw it, I’m sure your pleased too no. It’s letter perfect in it’s weigh, My checker tolled me sew. -Jarrold H. Zar, “Candidate for a Pullet Surprise” • From the Journal of Irreproducible Results • Jan/Feb 1994, 39:1, p. 13

11. Loss of Judgment • “The problem isn't that Wikipedia itself is flawed, say supporters; it's that many Net users don't understand how it works. The system allows anyone to post or change an entry. On Monday Wikipedia changed the system so only registered users could post, but registration requires only creating a username and password. Identities are still not verified.” • -USA Today • From USA Today, “It’s Online but is it true?” • By Janet Kornblum, 12/6/2005

12. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology Causes massive unemployment and deskilling of jobs: This is generally true as automation replaces the worker on the assembly line. This is not yet widespread. Furthermore, there is hope that displaced workers can be re-tooled to find other activities. At the moment, its unclear if this can actually work and scale to the potential amount of worker displacement.

13. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology We use the technology because it is there (not because they satisfy real needs) This has been clearly the case for Television which caused a noticeable change in the nature of family dynamics and individuals use of leisure time. It is likely getting worse now

14. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology Causes social inequality Today this is called the Digital Divide – Mobility will likely improve this

15. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology Source of social disintegration; they are dehumanizing

16. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology Separates humans from nature and destroys the environment This fairly self-evident. The internet simply accelerates this through global sales and consumption:

17. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology However, the Internet is being used as a vehicle to level this playfield so that there is no real dominance outside the corporate NAZI states of Verizon and Comcast. Benefits big business and big government This is highly debatable - certainly in the early 20th century assembly line technology allowed big business to dominate through Social Darwinism combined with apparent cultural superiority achieved through technology

18. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology Thwarts development of social skills, human values, and intellectual skills in children. This is, of course, the experiment in progress. There is no real credible evidence that television degraded these skills and there is no evidence that the digital age has (yet) degraded these skills. Japan survey interesting – nothing clear cut:

19. The Eight Long time Criticisms of any Disruptive Technology John Maynard Keynes (British Economist) - 1946 Alas, this day does seem rather far off and this is the crux of the matter – when will this arena of heart and head actually become the important focal point? • Solves no real human problems.