Nothing is Inevitable
Radical techno-fundamentalist Kevin Kelly has posted another manifesto that is quite remarkable (even in the context of Kelly’s mindbogglingly uncritical body of work) for its steadfast refusal to acknowledge that a research program might somehow be misguided. Kelly never ceases flogging the idea that if a computer scientist is working on something, then it is our future: not a possible future, but the future. The research program in this case is the continuous archiving and retrieval of personal experience, which Kelly refers to as “lifelogging.” (This terminology is presumably in accordance with the Wired magazine style manual, which requires that any technology or practice deemed to be “inevitable” be given a catchy name of the form [noun + verb + ing], see e.g. crowdsourcing.)
Kelly begins by extolling the glorious benefits lifelogging will bring. Then he gives example after example of lifelogging failing to be useful or usable. But no matter! For true believers like Kelly, failures are just speedbumps on the road to guaranteed success. One is reminded of our president’s similar blindness to failure or mistakes of any kind as he stares into the bright shining light of his desired future. The strong evidence that lifelogging isn’t needed, isn’t wanted, and doesn’t solve the problems it claims to solve is irrelevant, because lifelogging is “inevitable” and will soon be “pervasive.” “Skeptics” might complain, and might even try to prohibit lifelogging, but these naysayers should be ignored. Kelly’s message is that resistance is futile, so we might as well begin adapting our laws, culture and norms now.
But resistance is not futile, and CARPE technologies are not inevitable. People can and, I expect, will reject lifelogging, for the very reasons that Kelly cites in his article. The central flaw in Kelly’s reasoning (other than his rampant technical determinism) is a belief in “information” as some phlogiston-like magical substance that will, if gathered in sufficient quantities, empower us to live better lives. But as Daniel Yankelovich argues in Coming to Public Judgment, what people lack is not information, but the realization that they can exert influence over the world in which they live. Kelly is ready to cede this influence entirely to the computer scientists and product developers at Microsoft. I am not.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Hello! Noticed your post somewhere, read K.Kelly’s post and decided to comment here. :)
I see that more than “push” some vision of any future products, the CARPE research is looking outside the box in these two things:
1. In the amount and diversity of information, which the technologies are meant to handle. Current systems or organizing and classifying information don’t scale up. Introduce a few new contexts of use for current applications and it gets messy and complex. I believe that most of the carpe technologies would never be used by mortals - however, they would have strong applicability in other sectors like Homeland security. :)
2. It looks over the boundaries of single devices and applications. Socio-technical challenges emerge when the data amount grows larger and they are wicked problems, not easy ones.
The on-going research (calling them “CARPE technologies” is exaggerating the prototypes that have been created for the purpose of being able guess what to patent) will provide a body of reference which will either have an influence or not. I have never heard that a productization process has cited any research report. You and Mr. Kelly are both underestimating marketing. :)
Also, Kelly’s story’s Gelernter-reference is ridiculous because he made the mistake of thinking that 3d-representation would be able to display information in a more relevant form and scale. (Scale yes, relevance no)
I take no stand at the question of the growing amount of information - can it empower us to live better lives or not. At least it will also make someone rich. That someone might be the “wrangler” Bruce Sterling writes about in ‘Shaping Things’.
Cheers.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I should clarify: I don’t mean to suggest that CARPE researchers shouldn’t be doing the work that they doing. I think it is quite interesting, for the reasons you mention. But thinking that work is interesting shouldn’t be an excuse for not thinking critically about it, or for avoiding our responsibility to decide how such technologies might be used.