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This page contains an abstracted version of an invited talk I gave
at Graphics Interface '97, held in Kelowna, British Columbia. I
wanted to remind my colleagues that scientists and technologists
can have an influence on the culture through the work we do, and
that we should acknowledge that responsibility and act appropriately.
I suggest in broad terms what "appropriate" should be,
but my intent was more to provoke conversation and individual examination
of beliefs than to hold forth with a particular ideology.
What follows is a rough outline of the talk in skeletal form.
Why Build?
Because we can. To stop or even slow down powerful technologies
in our culture is all but impossible; genetic engineering is only
slightly affected by enormous widespread opposition. Nuclear technology
was only scaled back after horrible disasters and near-misses. Computers
will continue to permeate our culture; we should be aware of this
and try to reduce their negative effects.
Promise
or Peril?
Every change brings hope and trouble, rewards and punishments. Computers
are no different.
Technologies
Agendas
Technology is not neutral. A war arrow is intended to kill, regardless
of the moral interpretation of what killing is done. These subjective
implications of technologies are important to understand, because
they're the ones we can't change once the technology is in place.
Technology
is Amoral
Technology has an agenda, but not a conscious purpose. Its goal
is to neither help nor harm, but simply to do its job. Our applications
make the moral purpose. However, some technologies have built-in
agendas that always lead to the same moral interpretations; e.g.
war arrows kill. If one takes the moral position that killing is
wrong under all circumstances, then war arrows cannot be made into
acceptable artifacts. If a war arrow manufacturer believes that
all killing is wrong, she must confront that this will be an inevitable
and direct result of her work.
Hierarchy
of Interpretation
Because interpretation of technology is often difficult, I believe
a formalism is helpful, and suggest the following hierarchy. At
the bottom is the mechanical action of the artifact - those things
that it does within itself and to the world (e.g. a helium balloon
requires helium and rises in the air). Then actual uses documents
to what end the artifact is applied. Above that are the intended
uses that describe what the designer had in mind as the use of the
object. Then comes the commalities of uses, or those things that
are common too all uses, intended and actual. Finally, across many
objects we can draw composite uses which show how the artifact is
a necessary (though perhaps invisible) part of larger objects. At
each stage we can make moral interpretations of the results, and
those interpretations can change from level to level.
Apropos examples
for analysis include credit cards, genetic engineering, artificial
intelligence, television, and image processing.
The Computer
Graphics Agenda
Ultimately, what's CG headed for? I call it responsive, personal
movies. Whether for entertainment and fun or science and education,
we'll be able to produce moving imagery indistinguishable from live-action
film. The results will be responsive (more interesting than just
interactive), personal (customized for you), and of the highest
quality in motion, appearance, lighting, cinematography, and so
on. This isn't around the corner, but it's where we're headed.
Some Upcoming
Technologies
Such technology makes lots of things possible. One includes purely
synthetic characters on the media, acting as politicians, entertainers,
sports figures, endorsers, and so on. We will be able to transform
your speech and imagery into other forms, creating a kind of electronic
parrot to transform your voice, and indeed your words, into those
of a different person. We will be able to rent personas that we
like, and trade and customize them. And on a videophone we won't
be able to tell a real human from a synthetic computer-generated
standin.
Some Impliciations
We will no longer be able to distinguish real from synthetic imagery
and sound. Our senses are what connect us to the world; when we
reach high-bandwidth direct cortical stimulation, we will lose touch
of what is real from what is being dynamically generated. We will
confuse the map (computer synthetic objects) with the territory
(real-world objects that they will sometimes represent). We will
lose touch with one another because of the increased filtration
of our expressions and receptions. There are some creepy implications
for marketing.
Creating
An Utterance
I think it's important to see how our computer-based culture affects
what we say and hear to one another. To create an utterance, or
a spoken expression, the speaker must account for the context (environment),
the importance of the message, and assumptions about how much knowledge
and which beliefs are shared between the speaker and the listener.
Formation
of an Utterance
I suggest a five-step hierarchy is useful for understanding how
we apply these filters to express ourselves. From a web of nascent
thoughts we choose something of value to communicate. We try to
isolate that "something" by the selection of thread and
minimal context needed for this particular audience. We then do
temporal sequencing to get the ideas in order, and then apply word
choices to the resulting sequence. Finally, if delivered orally,
a delivery style is chosen. Each of these choices is influence by
the four pressures mentioned just above.
The Information
Age
The "Information Age" brings with it senses of urgency
and remove from the world. A sociologist named Milgram identified
six common responses that people have to a dense urban environment;
these are also applicable to the information age.
The winners
are those who always win: those with power and control, who build
and own the environment others work in. This is where engineers
and scientists have a role. Not everything we do will be influential,
but we all hope it will be. And when our work becomes widespread
(as for example the ideas of the web have recently), then we affect
the world in important ways. We need to acknowledge that we have
a responsibility to choose well, in case our work does prove to
be widely influential.
Response
to Environment
To paraphrase Jerry Mander, a creature can respond to its environment
in four ways: Adapt, Rebel, Go Crazy, or Die. We usually do some
of each.
Taking Responsibility
Engineers and scientists have a special role to play. The sheer
timing of new work, and the sequence in which it comes out, can
affect how it is perceived and used. Two different research agendas
can ultimately produce the same results, but they can have very
different influences on the field.
Nobody can
predict the future, but we should try to guess at the implications
of our work, as well as we can. We can colonize, lobby, write, and
talk to one another and everyone else, and try to build a future
we want to live in.
Resources
Click here to see some books
that I recommend on this topic.
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