Our robot monsters may be more mundane than this 1950s 3-D version, but no less dangerous.
When I started writing about Specialists the other day and bemoaned the shift technology has imposed on us, I didn’t imagine that I would find an echo for my concerns in the latest issue of Wired. But leafing through the analogue issue that arrived by snail mail I got a jolt with an article pointing out the dangers of relying too heavily on technology.
The piece by Clive Thompson posits that the dangers of relying on machines, such as the self-driving car, leaves decision-making to algorithms that may not fit our own choices. Giving up choices to machines may even endanger our ability to make decisions in the future, as we become reliant on robot monsters.
Yeah, I hit the enhance button in iPhoto, and I use Automatic Gain Control to regulate record volume when I’m in an ENG run-and-gun situation, and auto iris is useful to get a good video level (no I don’t carry a light meter any more), but I also use Photoshop when I need to do a more careful retouch, and I know when to turn the AGC off so I don’t get fluctuations in the audio levels. Ditto for the auto iris.
The technology gives us shortcuts and a helping hand, but if we don’t know when to switch to manual — or worse, don’t have a manual override option — we may be giving up far too much control, damaging rather than helping the process.
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