WINNER
TECHNOLOGY TODAY: UTOPIA OR DYSTOPIA?
Introduction
In New York there is such a thing as a Remote Encoding Center: it is operated by a government
agency, the plant is organized by the logic of cost cutting, technological dynamism, global
communications, economic competitiveness and flexible social relations that also characterize
private sector production in the late 20 th century.
Social Research:
- Pattern recognition software incorporates the latest developments in artificial intelligence,
the human contribution is quickly whittled away
- Implying that within a few years’ computers will be able to read the vast majority of the
items the clerks now handle
- People work are able to go as they please in prearranged, round-the-clock, flex-time
schedules, clocking in and out of work with their plastic swipe cards
Technology today:
- AA batteries are discarded and many workers use headphones during work hours, to help
with their own personal concentration.
Digital technology as a cultural solvent
- Most people can anticipate that very mundane jobs will eventually be more useful to be
taken over by technology, for example the same remote encoding center, left me thinking,
should I be thankful all these people have a job with a fairly good wage of 12.00 dollars a
hour or should I acknowledge the fact that this work is a devoid of creativity suppressing
everything vital and interesting in the individual
- And would It then be so bad if technology did take over these peoples jobs?
- New instruments, techniques, and systems are seen as inputs that go into the hopper of
material production and are mixed with other ingredients, education, marketing,
government policy and so forth.
- We know we are doing well as society, when we see technological innovation contributing to
a gradual increase in incomes, profits, stock prices and living standards.
- Technological system building points to the same conclusion, namely that technological
innovations of any substantial extent involve a reweaving of the fabric of society,
reshaping of some of the roles, rules and relationships that comprise out ways of living
together.
- However, the new material instruments and techniques are never the sole causes for
changes
- The creation of new technical devise presents occasions around which the practices and
relations of everyday life are powerfully redefined, the lived experiences of work, family,
community and personal identity in short of some of the basic cultural conditions that
make us “who we are”
- Most people appreciate technologies and their involvement in societal changes and patterns
of everyday life.
- Technologies that surround us affect matters we deeply care about, the satisfactions of
working life, the character of family ties, the safety and friendliness of local communities,
the quality of to interactions with schools, clinics, banks, the media and other institutions
Key elements of this transformation: