Matty's Blog

It is interesting to consider how the economy and workforce will change as technology evolves.  I love watching sports, so I am especially intrigued with the debate of automated officials.  The argument for automated officials is increased accuracy.  If the sports have an intermediate solution where every single play in question is reviewed by computers, then the game would be slower, but less controversy and dispute over plays.  The ideal solution would appear to be that sports officiating were able to go fully automated in real time, which would likely require new technology.  However, this would remove a human element from the game.  One could say that if the goal is precision and accuracy, then the players themselves should be replaced with robots.  What makes sports so exciting is that nothing is precise or can be predicted due to human behavior, so removing human officials would be a step away from the natural human aspect of the game.

The end of the Falcons-Lions game would not have been so controversial if a machine had gotten the non-touchdown call right the first time.  With automated officials, people would not have complained about the outcome of the game or complained about the infamous Seahawks-Packers game with the replacement referees a couple of years ago.  Theoretically, automated officials would eliminate all complaining and controversy about calls from players, coaches, and fans, but people would probably still find something to complain about in the game.  Complaining is part of the game.  Players pout and/or put on a show to the referees in attempt to get calls to go their way.  While human officials are imprecise, I think that they are as part of the game as the imperfect human players who cannot always hit extra points in football or layups in basketball.

I wonder how the job economy will change in the next couple years under the influence of technology and increasing automation.  I am interested to see how the Amazon and Whole Foods relationship plays out in terms of automation in the food industry.  While there is certainly merit in human interaction at stores, would consumers be willing to pay extra for humans operating stores while machines could do the job at lower cost and arguably higher efficiency? While philosophers and the public debate such issues, the drivers of the decisions may be out of our control and instead centered on companies’ monetary agenda.

Learning the history of how the internet was built reminds me of the difficulties of building something that is now so prevalent and obviously useful.  From today’s perspective, I would have thought that the rise of the internet is inevitable, but there were many obstacles such as different packet sizes and choosing that the network was dumb and unreliable with smart endpoints.  Scaling the network also posed a problem that we do not consider today.  In the present, we get upset if our FaceTime to someone across the globe does not connect immediately.  We take reliability for granted and expect speed, while neither could be counted on before.

I wonder about the range of intentions for expanding the internet.  Recently, Facebook’s aggressive push for global expansion has brought debates about Facebook’s behavior.  Some argue that Facebook’s expansion into Africa that includes building lines is not dissimilar from the original European colonial expansion.  One could look at Facebook as a company solely interested in expanding its empire and control over people.  However, bringing internet and connectivity through Facebook to places such as Africa is undeniably beneficial for communication.  Facebook also has attempted to expand into places such as China that has tight government censorship, which Facebook has seemed willing to comply with.  Does Facebook in China benefit people as there already exists similar services?  Mark Zuckerburg has been seen wining and dining China’s leader Xi Jinping.  Did people fifty years ago do the same to convince others of the usefulness of the internet?  As an unknown quantity, the internet must have been hard to sell as most tend to be resistant to change or at least skeptical.

Harvard buying the TLD “.harvard” would have made it incrementally faster to type out URLs and also just a cool concept, but otherwise mostly insignificant.  With bookmarks and Google search, shortening an URL is not necessarily beneficial to users, but more of a luxury.  On the other hand, one could similarly argue that the internet itself is a luxury since people lived happy lives without it.  I think that a commonly overlooked aspect of the internet for students is the ability to search for any information on the internet for learning.  I think that my college experience would be very different without the internet.

For all the technological advances in the last decades, we still confront some of the same fundamental issues such as free speech and privacy.  In the past, controversy arose over whether a government could slander a fake robot company.  This past year, many questioned the role Facebook and other social media sites played in the election with allowing “fake news.”  Should Facebook censor false information?  Should Facebook censor offensive language?  Should Facebook censor terrorist recruitment posts? In the past, in the present, and likely in the future, the debate of balancing free speech and harmful language will rage on, even as new communication technology is developed.  Similarly, the question of privacy rights was relevant with the Finger utility decades years ago, and is still a salient question as phones can track location, record audio, and video at all times.  I take the attitude that everything done on a device could be seen by someone else or public even if companies claim that your data is private.  I think that the issue of privacy has only increased due to the amount of data that can be used to harm people.  Stalking other people’s location is creepy.  By using a powerful company’s devices, we cede a lot of rights and put our trust in them.

I found our discussion about cultural norms with certain technology also relevant for the present.  It is not socially acceptable to look at one’s phone in a middle of a conversation or meeting, but many people look at their smart watch while conversing.  Both acts disengage a person from the present, yet people are more comfortable with looking at their smart watch.  Perhaps this is because it has always been socially acceptable to look at a time-watch, and the more recent invention of the smart watch has not fully been integrated into social norms.  I find interesting how the social norm and use of certain platforms has evolved.  Before, most people posted pictures on Facebook, but now Instagram mostly dominates the picture posting.  Before, people sent pictures or videos over text, which has been replaced by Snapchat.

Upon reflection, I find that technology and the attitude surrounding new technology has really changed over my lifetime.  I remember in middle school that my parents were vehemently against me being on Google Buzz, an online chatting platform.  Years later, my parents constantly encourage me to send them pictures or messages over any and all platforms while I am separated from them at college.  Before, I think people were more cautious of online technology while now most people, including older generations, embrace it.  I am quite fortunate to live in a world where I can FaceTime my younger brother Chris every day.  Technology can separate us from our physical present surroundings, but I think is extremely valuable for connecting us to others when separated by long distances.  I would be saddened if I could not talk to or virtually see my brother at any given moment.  For all the concerns of free speech and privacy, I am grateful for the connected world that technology enables.

Comparing the state of the world in the 1950s/60s depicted in the readings and the world we live in today in which multiple digital AI systems exist to serve us, I recognize just how spectacular present-day technology is.  Recently, my roommates and I bemoaned that one of us did not have an iPhone, forcing us to use Facebook messenger for our group chat instead of the preferred iMessage.  The people at ARPA would have been shaking their heads at our spoiled remarks, happy to have even one efficient, reliable communication system.  Likewise, our discussion of Alexa and Cortana would have made the people sixty years ago salivate at the mere idea of digital ecosystems that humans can talk to.  While we find the partnership of Amazon and Microsoft intriguing as the two companies untraditionally team up with competing products, ARPA would have been amazed that such products even exist.  Despite differences in technology, people then and now grappled with collaboration and competition.  In the past, telecommunication innovation was suppressed by AT&T as they attempted to dominate the market.  Today, rival technology companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft share little information between each other, competing for market share.  The dominance and isolation of the major companies could dangerously stifle innovation.

I truly take for granted the technology that ARPA struggled with, not even understanding how the internet truly works.  Until reading Where Wizards Stay Up Late, I had no conception of ideas such as packets, message blocks, IMPs and network redundancy.  It is scary how little I know about the inner workings the technology I rely on such as the internet, smart phones, computers, among many other things.  I find it slightly peculiar that many people use their smart phones the most of anything in the world, yet know little about how the indispensable device works.

At Disney World, there is a ride called The Carousel of Progress.  The ride depicts the technological advances across the last century in different scenes.  The first scene describes the turn of the 20^th century that brings gas lamps, movie pictures, and disbelief that the Wright brothers will ever get a flying vehicle to work.  Each subsequent scene describes the new advances every couple decades, with the theme song “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow” marking the scene transition.  In each scene, the characters remark that they have life so much easier than in the past, disbelieving that life could be any better.  Our discussion on digital assistants in contrast to the development of the internet sixty years ago causes me to see to how far we have come as depicted in The Carousel of Progress.  Like the characters in the ride, I see how much easier life is then it was before, and in partial disbelief of how life could be any easier.  However, knowing that technology always advances in unpredictable ways, I am excited for what the future brings, and hopefully I can contribute to the progress.  As Disney World says, “there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow.”