Course Post#3: Who Are the Architects of Our Future?
“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”-Albert Einstein
Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about our society's technological progress and how all of it could potentially impact our future. It’s pretty obvious that my last two posts both critique Capitalism in some way and I suppose this post could be interpreted as another Capitalist critique as well. I did not intend for this blog to focus so heavily on Capitalism, but it is hard to think about technological innovation and progress without also considering what role Capitalist incentives play in all of this progress.
Across the globe, industrialized societies are starting to make leaps toward urbanized intelligence, or “smart cities.” Optimally, the smart technologies implemented into these cities would enable governance of public spaces, greener living spaces for residents, better energy flow, easier transportation, and improved overall health of the urban population (Meadows, Kouw). The term “smart technologies” is being used as an all-encompassing term for “information and communication technologies,” (ICTs) which refers to things like sensors, big-data processing facilities, wearable technologies, and cars that drive on their own. However, apparently there’s been some backlash from scholars who argue against “techno-optimism,” believing increased control over public spaces and neglecting the participation and involvement of citizens in developing these cities could end badly. In their article, “Future-Making: Inclusive Design and Smart Cities,” Maureen Meadows and Matthijs Kouw suggest an inclusive methodology in developing a vision for smart city designs, which would increase the participation and involvement of multiple stakeholders; they believe this would create a “single shared vision of the future.” Meadows and Kouw claim that the first step in developing a vision is the “identification of stakeholders.” Basically, before developing a vision, we must know who will actively support the cause and who will try and sabotage it. This inclusive method for developing a vision of the future seems possible, but leaves me wondering who will be the stakeholders and more importantly, what will they want?
Currently, our society’s corporations and institutions are driven by accumulating money and power, even if it is at the expense of the majority of society. Corporate entities and institutions are so heavily focused on exponential growth for the sake of progress, which creates unconstrained growth (Joichi Ito). This becomes an issue concerning the technological Singularity—the idea the Artificial Intelligence will eventually transcend human productivity with its exponential growth, ultimately displacing humans as a collective—because of the limited number of people in Silicon Valley who actually have the experience of using AI to solve problems. According to Joichi Ito’s article, “Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto,” mega companies located in Silicon Valley have formed a perfect partnership with digital computation because it is a knowable, controllable, system of thinking and creating that is rapidly increasing its ability to harness complex information, thus giving wealth and power to those who have mastered it. Furthermore, these individuals believe computers are capable of processing the “messiness” of the real world, just like every other problem they are able to solve. Basically, Singularity supporters believe computers can find solutions to social issues such as racial and gender inequality.
This leads back to my earlier question concerning urbanized intelligence—Who will be the stakeholders and what will be their incentives in helping create smart cities? If the incentives of our stakeholders are purely capitalistic and driven by power (like Silicon Valley’s “Singularitarians”), will smart technologies really be beneficial to all groups of people in urbanized communities? I strongly believe if we want to move toward smart cities and smart technologies, we have to start finding ways to move past Capitalism first if we ever want to rid our society of socio-economic inequalities. If the incentives of stakeholders involved in developing smart cities are to accumulate unconstrained wealth and power, how do we avoid the exploitation of a large majority of society? I think we need to consider these questions in order to truly develop a better future.
