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Tech Critics Create Powerful Video Responding To IBM's 'Dear Tech' Ad (slate.com)
"Technology hasn't fallen short of its promise. Tech companies have," argues Evan Selinger, a philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, reporting on a new "collaborative video response to IBM's Dear Tech Ad" (which was aired during last week's telecast of the Oscar's). Earlier Selinger wrote:
[IBM's] infantilizing ad depicts technology as if it were an autonomous person, a benevolent Santa Claus figure that can give great products to all the good little girls and boys if they ask politely.... It all sounds nice. But the message obscures the fact that technology hasn't fallen short of its promise. It's recalcitrant tech companies that need to change. That includes IBM....
IBM isn't alone in this sunny disingenuousness. Its competitors also give lip service to listening to our hopes and dreams while shutting down criticism that's voiced to make things better... A commercial like this one can't avoid being an empty marketing pitch when it represents a contested concept as a clear and unambiguous wish that technology can magically grant just as easily as Santa can satisfy a request for a new smartphone.
So a team of tech critics including Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab "created an alternative to IBM's ad. It's a provocative, line-by-line, video counterstatement" -- not "Dear Tech," but "Dear Tech Company."
Here are some of its more provocative quotes:
"We have a pretty complicated relationship."
"Your track record is mixed."
"Really mixed."
"And you have the potential to do immense harm."
"Are you only benefiting a few?"
"While many more suffer?"
The new counter-ad urges its viewers to demand more accountability from tech companies. (Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of civic media at MIT, even argues for companies "that treat people as more than data subjects for surveillance capitalism.") In a follow-up article, Selinger writes:
The most dangerous message promoted by the Dear Tech commercial is that socially responsible technology will be on its way simply because people are asking for it. This way of characterizing change suggests tech companies aren't incentivized to promote outcomes that are more self-serving than giving the public what it deserves.
The new video says, "Let's make time to understand the impact of technology on people's lives." It's a powerful message. Too bad this ad doesn't have an Oscars-sized budget behind it.
IBM isn't alone in this sunny disingenuousness. Its competitors also give lip service to listening to our hopes and dreams while shutting down criticism that's voiced to make things better... A commercial like this one can't avoid being an empty marketing pitch when it represents a contested concept as a clear and unambiguous wish that technology can magically grant just as easily as Santa can satisfy a request for a new smartphone.
So a team of tech critics including Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab "created an alternative to IBM's ad. It's a provocative, line-by-line, video counterstatement" -- not "Dear Tech," but "Dear Tech Company."
Here are some of its more provocative quotes:
"We have a pretty complicated relationship."
"Your track record is mixed."
"Really mixed."
"And you have the potential to do immense harm."
"Are you only benefiting a few?"
"While many more suffer?"
The new counter-ad urges its viewers to demand more accountability from tech companies. (Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of civic media at MIT, even argues for companies "that treat people as more than data subjects for surveillance capitalism.") In a follow-up article, Selinger writes:
The most dangerous message promoted by the Dear Tech commercial is that socially responsible technology will be on its way simply because people are asking for it. This way of characterizing change suggests tech companies aren't incentivized to promote outcomes that are more self-serving than giving the public what it deserves.
The new video says, "Let's make time to understand the impact of technology on people's lives." It's a powerful message. Too bad this ad doesn't have an Oscars-sized budget behind it.
A. Technology is the dominant force that 'impacts' society, and society has to respond to it. The printing press created a new type of society. In philosophy this is called the "technological determinist" perspective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
B. Social forces are the dominant force in society, and the technologies we invent and embrace (or reject) are an expression of these. For example, even though video calling was the more advanced technology, people preferred SMS instead. This is called the Social Constructivist perspective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
These are extremes on an axis.
In Silicon Valley technological determinism is rampant. It's the simpler of the two stories, the more attractive one. If technology is the dominant influencer, then there's no need to understand the complexities and ethics of the situations you're 'disrupting'. Narratives around blockchain/VR/singularity/etc also happily align with the "new tech is inevitable" part, because it implies any attempt to regulate it is wasted effort.
Millennials are often labelled "tech-savvy", which they aren't: they don't know how it works any more than the gen-Xers who were called the same just because we could set a VCR clock.
They're tech immersed, and their ignorance of how the tech companies exploit them means they're drowning in it, and no more than any previous generation know how to swim. They're dragging their elders down in it because they have no ability to warn against social media, home assistants, or smart TVs.
I saw it, and I don't think it says anything at all. Corporations should not be begged to behave, they should be forced to behave by law.
This is what a "free market" is - a market regulated so that all players have equal power. Economics 101, Adam Smith, etc.
This is just more leftist anti-white, anti-male rhetoric. They explicitly ask for jobs based on their skin color when they ask for solutions "led by people with lived experience of inequality" (because in modern leftism, it isn't the idea that matters, it is the skin color of the person hired to champion it).
Boring and racebait, 1/10.
Are you nuts or something?
Companies produce goods and services that people want. So they serve a human need, on some level. It was the ingenuity of individual entrepreneurs and companies of this world that brought us from the middle ages to today's modern living standards, right across the globe. There are fewer people living in poverty than ever before (at least as a percentage of the population), and never in human history have so many enjoyed relative wealth, hygene and safe foods. The key driver of course is the availability of instant energy almost anywhere on the planet.
Let's remind the pale male boy's club that past and current actions exclude capable yet marginalized individuals from STEM
That was left out of TFS, probably to (temporarily) hide how fundamentally racist and sexist this "collaboration" is.
And yet, the un-abridged capital-driven world is also the most corrupt, so much so it makes Soviet Russia look like toddlers play.
Check and mate.
The immense about of corruption, cronyism and general scummery that goes on in the west is embarrassing.
Funnier yet are the ones so viciously against anything else because the capital-driven companies have invested so much in making these people HATE any other way with a passion.
Just look at the reactions you get when you mention communism in America, holy shit it's funny.
American Dad's Stan is a classic example of that stereotype that still persists today, the hyper-Capitalist types are some of the funniest people around.
Don't confuse me for someone that thinks Communism is good btw, I don't think Capitalism, Socialism OR Communism are good. The only good economies on this planet are mixes of these models, and specifically some of the systems used in Nordic countries mainly, and previously the UK before it got ruined by American influence from the 80-90s on.
These countries barely sneezed during the global recession in '08.
They're also usually the happiest countries in general.
This confuses the American, "but their taxes are insane!!!!!". Makes me laugh. They literally cannot comprehend models that aren't theirs because they've had it driven in to them to hate anything else for decades.
There's many millions of people who have everything to lose if anyone questions it.
They are pushing this influence more and more in to other countries with much greater force now than ever because of it's undying thirst to grow to infinity.
They are taking advantage of Brexit just now, having anonymously donated considerable sums to trick people in to voting Leave, and still pushing piece after piece on sites and newspapers about how "evil" Europe have been taking advantage of Britain for years.
Don't suck the dick of a model that hasn't got your interests in mind. It will happily throw you under the bus for profit.
Unless you yourself are on the top, all 3 models are scummy and against your interests.
It's really glaring when people write these things and totally fail to acknowledge the stunning success story that is the profit motive.
The service contract for the Third Reich's concentration camp management computers was paid directly to Armonk, NY. What was that about profit motive again?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ah yes, the old "vote with yer wallet!" mantra. Seems to be working with Comcast, AT&T, et. cet. Yeah? They've collectively been in the fucking dustbin for satisfaction surveys almost my whole life.
And yet, there they are, benefiting from concepts apparently unknown to you. Ever hear of "regulatory capture"? How about "buying the laws you want"?
No?
Then do some research and stop spewing happy thought bullshit.
Regulation is sorely needed, ACTUAL regulation. Not this ball fondling lip service we have now.
Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.