There was an article in the NY Times a few years ago about Google maps and ‘location-awareness.’
“In the future such location-awareness will be built into more than just phones. All of our stuff will know where it is – and that awareness will imbue the real world with some of the power of the virtual. Your house keys will tell you that they’re still on your desk at work. Your tools will remind you that they were lent to a friend. And your car will be able to drive itself to an errand to retrieve both your keys and your tools.”
A frisson of alarm passed through me upon reading those lines. I have long been uneasy about GPS in general. Yes, I know it helps you find places you’ve never been before and keeps track of the car in case of emergencies, etc. And yet I admit to being suspicious about possible other purposes.
What’s the matter with getting lost once in a while? What’s wrong about not knowing exactly where you are upon occasion? Lurking in the background of both questions is fear. We fear not being in control, we fear not knowing where we are, we fear what might, or might not, happen.
We’ve already projected that on to our pets. You cannot adopt an animal from the shelter who is not already ‘chipped’ with an ID embedded under the skin. This electronic identifier with its constant transmittal is suspected as a cause of cancer in animals – and it is very difficult and costly to have removed.
There is also talk about ‘chipping’ those with Alzheimer’s so that if/when they may wander away, they can more easily be found. Fast on the heels of this idea is to chip children in the event they are ever lost or kidnapped. It will only be a few short steps to chipping everyone for our own protection.
Imagine a society in which all danger has been removed, all the unknowns eliminated. We certainly would be safe – but from who and what. If we never have to worry about getting lost, we will never have to think about where we are. We will no longer need to maintain a connection with present reality.
It is just like the early calculators. Do people need to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide any more when a tiny machine will tell you? When was the last time you saw a cash register that didn’t tell the clerk the proper change?
When was the last time you memorized a phone number? Why bother when the phone has its own directory. Why try to remember a special moment in life when you have a camera to do it for you? Can you tell a story without reading it from a book?
I am not recommending we all go back to using slide rules, traveling by the stars or memorizing long passages of Shakespeare. All of the new tools of technology are useful. However, they are also making us dependent. The more civilized and complex we become, the more fearful we are – and the more compliant.
Technology does so many things for us we no longer have to use our memories as much, we no longer have to be present and aware as much, we no longer are compelled to face ‘reality’ as much. This reminded me of a war documentary I watched in which the reviewer complained that the film maker showed dead bodies.
It seems like there is this internal mental dialogue that says: “Now you don’t have to worry about anything anymore because I have it all under control. You don’t have to be afraid of the unknown because I will make you safe. You don’t have to remember because I will remember it for you.”
This discussion about a GPS pales in significance when put beside Artificial Intelligence. It is GPS on mega-steroids. Before we know it, AI will be driving our cars, teaching our children, managing our health, running our governments, and doing long division. Do we really need to have machines to make us safer? From who? From what?
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