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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.
Dear pretentious internet children.......
Let's try to remember how much smaller the world felt 30 years ago.
Let's consider the always listening surveillance devices we put in our homes.
Let's point out the hundreds of options we have for things that did not even exists a decade ago.
Let's look real close at the way we behave behind the anonymity tech provides.
Let's try to count the hours lost to on-screen entertainment.
Let's consider the way we've all unthinkingly fell in line with social media's personal data appetite.
Let's remember that the reason our personal information is constantly lost is because we gave it away to begin with.
Let's try and remember..... anything without consulting the supercomputer in our pocket.
Dear pretentious internet children.... enjoy your free long distance, your standard in-car navigation, and your ultra efficient smart cars. Keep on buying anything you can imagine with standard two day shipping- without leaving your bedroom. Join an inviting community covering any subject that strikes your fancy, and keep using the ad-supported step-by-step video instructions on how to do anything you can think of. Go ahead and apply for hundreds of jobs in your area, even while sitting in your underwear at 2AM, after a rousing deathmatch with all of your closest *friends*
You're welcome to all of it (as long as your parents keep paying the power bill)
Your pal,
Tech.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.