Machines shouldn't do people's jobs (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

24. Kids will always know more about some things than you will.

According to a recent listserv posting, a librarian was frustrated because her school’s filter denied her class access to Google’s search engine. After she voiced her frustration to her class, a student came up and whispered: “You can do the same thing with <http://google.ca> (the unblocked Canadian version of the site). Problem solved.

Many - if not most - kids have more time, more energy, less fear, and greater comfort with technology than we old people ever will. Accept it. 

What we bring to the table is not the “how-to” but the “why-to.” When my son plunks a digitized movie into a presentation, it’s my job to ask “Why?” Does it add to the communication power of the message?

 
25. Machines shouldn't do people's jobs. 

Here is a personal list of things people rather than technology should do:

• Decide what Internet sites are appropriate and not appropriate.
• Correct anyone’s grammar.
• Teach kids to read.
• Answer the school telephone.
• Write poetry.

My dad was very mechanical, but never owned an answering machine and complained every time he reached mine. His comment: “If I wanted to talk to a machine, I’d go to the garage and talk to my lawnmower.” After going through a dozen menu options when trying to reach some schools, I’m becoming more sympathetic.

Don’t ask machines to do tasks that are uniquely human. Artificial intelligence is, after all, artificial.

26. Technology is neither good nor bad. The same hammer can both break windows and build cathedrals.

I call this the rule of technology neutrality. I am constantly amazed at both the techophobes and the technophiles. 

• Give kids (or adults) e-mail and they will send tasteless jokes.
• Give them wireless devices and they will pass notes and test answers.
• Give them photo editing software and some very silly pictures will result.
• Give them Internet access and they will find sites that are nasty.

This is not new. The first motion pictures made were naughty ones. It probably took the first tool-using ape about 30 seconds to figure out that coconuts and skulls could both be cracked.

I try to remember the Latin expression: Ex abusu non arguitur in usum. (The abuse of a thing is no argument against its use.) Anticipate the problems and then adopt the technologies anyway.