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The title really is the thesis. But the author backs it up with opinion. Like many of these articles, the author seems to apply all these adjectives that imput

The title really is the thesis. But the author backs it up with opinion. Like many of these articles, the author seems to apply all these adjectives that impute intent. No technology is "inherently oppressive" nor is any technology "ruthless" because machines themselves have no intent. I believe this anthropomorphic sleight of hand is deliberate because the author does get around to changing the topic to "machine-assisted ruthlessness." He might as well say that "tools are inherently oppressive" because any tool can be used by oppressing humans to enforce their own oppression or ruthlessness. This is the same as opining that knives are inherently violent. The argument is illogical, and an appeal to emotion.

hlandau 2y ago
Author here. This misses the point that computers are a technology. Like any technology, the choice to adopt a technology is always made by a human actor with some knowledge of the relevant tradeoffs. Ergo, wilful adoption of a technology which (necessarily) possesses the attributes I describe can be taken as tacit consent to those attributes and the collateral damage they cause. There is a human actor hiding behind every life ruined by "computer says no". Saying that no technology is inherently oppressive is strange to me. Are prisons not by design an intentionally oppressive technology? The human perception of agency in inanimate objects is curiously variable. To my understanding, this is a factor in why some people are more religious and some people are less so. Since my article is intrinsically written from the capacity to perceive agency as present in an inanimate object, it's perhaps less compelling to people who aren't wired this way, is my guess. This is not a criticism of anyone, just an observation of an interesting human neurological variability. Other constructions of the same argument are of course possible. In any case, the point here is that a human actor decides to adopt computers as a technology; and that that act generally replaces a human interaction which was previously social, human-to-human, and therefore on some level adaptive and modulated by empathy, whereas a human-computer interaction is inherently uncaring. The adoption of computer technology in society has led to a generalised trend of replacing human-human (social) interactions with human-computer or human-computer-human interactions, which generally remove all opportunities for adaptation or empathic variation. This leads to my view that computers as a technology in society are inherently oppressive. Though I suppose one possible qualification would be that this possibly is only the case when applied as a technology by a different party to the party which will be subject to it. A computer in someone's home by their free choice, which is purely controlled by them (which is therefore not any modern computer, I should note) seems like an exception.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  My position is that the technology does not possess the attributes you claim it does. Prisons are not a technology. Prisons are buildings that use various technologies, including optics, metallurgy, concrete, electronics... etc. But prisons are an application. Adoption of computers, and the decision to use them to oppress or to free, is entirely within in the purview of the adopter. That is, the only people to blame are the ones who set the technology to a specific purpose, those who apply it. Your essay confuses application with existence, and I don't think that make sense. A car exists. It can be used to drive kids to school, or it can be used to mow down pedestrians. There is nothing inherent in the technology with relation to intent. I think the same is true of computers. Potential application is not the same as intent.
  - hlandau 2y ago
    Prisons are a technology as I define it, as is writing, agriculture, etc.
    - slowmovintarget 2y ago
      I disagree that prisons are a technology, as that doesn't fit the term. However, even if we were to consider prisons a technology, there are good applications and bad applications. Prisons may be used to keep violent predators away from the civil society they might harm. Prisons may also be used as a deterrent against crime, also beneficial to a civil society. That prisons are used as profit centers by corporations who also have regulatory capture is an evil of the people running those corporations and the corrupt officials who look the other way in order to line their pockets. But neither the good, nor the evil has anything to do with concrete, steel, monitoring systems, and plumbing of a prison. Humans are good or evil, or sometimes a complicated mixture of both. Shifting the animus to the inanimate shifts the responsibility, and I doubt even clear-thinking religious people would be on-board with that. (I'm not, and I'm religious.) Action, intent, and agency are human things. Ascribing those things to technology hearkens back to animism not rationalism. The spirit of the river made it jump its banks and flood because the river had an ill temper. The computer was ruthless when it calculated the pay of Bob. That's not how our universe works. I agree with the premise of "machine-assisted ruthlessness." I simply disagree with the notion that the ruthlessness or oppressiveness is inherent to the tech.

hlandau 2y ago

Author here. This misses the point that computers are a technology. Like any technology, the choice to adopt a technology is always made by a human actor with some knowledge of the relevant tradeoffs. Ergo, wilful adoption of a technology which (necessarily) possesses the attributes I describe can be taken as tacit consent to those attributes and the collateral damage they cause. There is a human actor hiding behind every life ruined by "computer says no". Saying that no technology is inherently oppressive is strange to me. Are prisons not by design an intentionally oppressive technology? The human perception of agency in inanimate objects is curiously variable. To my understanding, this is a factor in why some people are more religious and some people are less so. Since my article is intrinsically written from the capacity to perceive agency as present in an inanimate object, it's perhaps less compelling to people who aren't wired this way, is my guess. This is not a criticism of anyone, just an observation of an interesting human neurological variability. Other constructions of the same argument are of course possible. In any case, the point here is that a human actor decides to adopt computers as a technology; and that that act generally replaces a human interaction which was previously social, human-to-human, and therefore on some level adaptive and modulated by empathy, whereas a human-computer interaction is inherently uncaring. The adoption of computer technology in society has led to a generalised trend of replacing human-human (social) interactions with human-computer or human-computer-human interactions, which generally remove all opportunities for adaptation or empathic variation. This leads to my view that computers as a technology in society are inherently oppressive. Though I suppose one possible qualification would be that this possibly is only the case when applied as a technology by a different party to the party which will be subject to it. A computer in someone's home by their free choice, which is purely controlled by them (which is therefore not any modern computer, I should note) seems like an exception.

slowmovintarget 2y ago
My position is that the technology does not possess the attributes you claim it does. Prisons are not a technology. Prisons are buildings that use various technologies, including optics, metallurgy, concrete, electronics... etc. But prisons are an application. Adoption of computers, and the decision to use them to oppress or to free, is entirely within in the purview of the adopter. That is, the only people to blame are the ones who set the technology to a specific purpose, those who apply it. Your essay confuses application with existence, and I don't think that make sense. A car exists. It can be used to drive kids to school, or it can be used to mow down pedestrians. There is nothing inherent in the technology with relation to intent. I think the same is true of computers. Potential application is not the same as intent.
- hlandau 2y ago
  Prisons are a technology as I define it, as is writing, agriculture, etc.
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    I disagree that prisons are a technology, as that doesn't fit the term. However, even if we were to consider prisons a technology, there are good applications and bad applications. Prisons may be used to keep violent predators away from the civil society they might harm. Prisons may also be used as a deterrent against crime, also beneficial to a civil society. That prisons are used as profit centers by corporations who also have regulatory capture is an evil of the people running those corporations and the corrupt officials who look the other way in order to line their pockets. But neither the good, nor the evil has anything to do with concrete, steel, monitoring systems, and plumbing of a prison. Humans are good or evil, or sometimes a complicated mixture of both. Shifting the animus to the inanimate shifts the responsibility, and I doubt even clear-thinking religious people would be on-board with that. (I'm not, and I'm religious.) Action, intent, and agency are human things. Ascribing those things to technology hearkens back to animism not rationalism. The spirit of the river made it jump its banks and flood because the river had an ill temper. The computer was ruthless when it calculated the pay of Bob. That's not how our universe works. I agree with the premise of "machine-assisted ruthlessness." I simply disagree with the notion that the ruthlessness or oppressiveness is inherent to the tech.