Quote to Note: Technology Bummer
February 17, 2017
I was surfing through Canada’s online newspapers to see what’s hot and what’s not in the world center for artificial intelligence. (Yes, I believe the Industry Canada PR about Google and Microsoft setting up smart software shops in a land where some of my relatives live.)
I read this uplifting article: “A Flare for Self-Destruction: How Technology Is the Means, Not the Cause, of Our Demise.”
Here’s the quote I noted:
Technologies are just the enabling routes to self-destruction, not the cause.
The write up includes some comments about the cloud, offering this insight to letting other people handle one’s data:
Many computer users go along with this [cloud] promise, because cloud storage is cheap, convenient and seemingly infinite. But this means that the company has access to our confidential information. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it will keep its side of the deal. It may get taken over, or it may go bankrupt. Moreover, if we stop our payments – or, for that matter, die – the company may render our data inaccessible, or even delete it. Perhaps “cloud computing” should be renamed “cloud-cuckoo computing.”
Let me point out that the newspaper is not pushing negativism. The article is a book review of Peter Townsend’s The Dark Side of Technology. Sounds like a fun read. Tip: Read Jacques Ellul’s Technological Bluff. It’s a spirit lifter too.
St4ephen E Arnold, February 17, 2017
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