(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



What Is Technology For? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-10  

I have told this story before, but I did not set out to work in technology. I was either going to be a writer or a lawyer. I was either going to be the next Bernstein or the next Perry Mason. And then my school made me take an engineering course.

The course itself was extremely basic — build some bridges and cars, etc. that did what they were supposed to do. I didn’t do well in the class, but I fell in love with the process of problem solving. Taking what I had in front of me and my own knowledge and skills and making something better than it was before? It was an exhilarating feeling. My career was set.

I did not rationally choose to maximize my earning potential, as the economists like to posit. In fact, at the time, I am pretty sure lawyer would have been lucrative. But it would not have been anywhere near as fun. One of the reasons that companies like Facebook and Apple play up the alleged world changing aspects of their products is that most tech people are in the game for the trill of solving problems, not the thrill of watching the line go up.

This is not a universal position, of course. Greed can be found in every profession and in this capitalistic hellscape, money is the only way to even approach true freedom. But if we were to get universal robot driven space communism tomorrow, you would still have people who spend their time trying to make something cool. Technology fills the same need for creativity that writing or painting or music does. It is a universal human need, and you don’t need economic incentives to bring it out of people. It springs out of them as naturally as breathing or falling in love. It is, in many ways, what it means to be human, to be alive.

That is one of the reasons that, generally speaking, when a company is in the hands of engineers and designers, it produces products that people want. It is mostly only when the economists and MBAs step in that the product turns to enshittification.

Technology, broadly defined, has been a benefit to humanity. My wife is alive because of advances in medical technology. We live longer, generally happier, and generally safer than our ancestors used to because people wanted to build something neat and helpful. The impulse is not always beneficial — imitative AI is a neat technological problem that doesn’t really have much in the way of ethical usages. But even there, much of the overblown hype is being driven by people like Sam Altman — a person who is not actually a technologist. But the impulse overall is natural and, with the right bits of controls and incentives, can be harnessed for the benefit of society, not just shareholders.

What is the point of this rambling? Just a reminder, I think, that our problem with technology and technology companies is not a problem with the creativity inherent in technology. It is a problem with capitalism. Technolgy is not for making people rich. It is for expressing the innate creativity common to all people and, hopefully, using that creativity to make things better. If we control our capitalism, if we put creativity and human beings ahead of monetary incentives, we will have a much more helpful, human technology industry.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/10/2245698/-What-Is-Technology-For?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/