this talk actually starts about 40 years
ago back in 1980 there was a young
political scientist named Langdon winner
who asked his colleagues a question and
it was supposed to be just a
philosophical question and it was at the
time but it’s one that’s become I think
much more pertinent today the question
that Langdon Wintour asked was do
artifacts have politics and I usually
ask that question to a roomful of
students and I get a lot of really big
wildered looks like the looks that I see
right now I used to think that that was
because my students were just like
deeply conflicted by this very
philosophical question it turns out
though that no one was actually doing
their homework and the students had no
idea what I was actually asking them so
I usually end up giving them the answer
and I will give you the answer as well
that answer is yes artifacts do indeed
have politics but that’s not a very
satisfactory answer right and there’s
always one really smart student who will
raise their hand and say well what do
you mean by politics and what do you
mean by artifacts and I think that’s a
fair question so let’s start with that
first word artifacts it’s it’s kind of a
strange word I think to hear in this
context because when we think about it
we usually think of artifacts as the
kinds of things that archeologists dig
up out of the ground and that we put in
museums right they’re cultural artifacts
but if you use the word technological
artifact that starts to become a bit
more resonant right we sort of
understand what a technological artifact
is and the smartphone that we all have
in our pockets is a technological
artifact just like a piece of pottery
that gets dug up out of the ground in
ancient Greece and that pottery actually
in its day was probably a very cutting
edge technology just like our
smartphones are now that may be obvious
when you say it that way but I think
there’s some value in remembering that
all of the artifacts that we that we dig
up out of the ground all of the
artifacts that we carry around with us
today all of those technologies they
tell us something about the people who
build them they tell us something about
the people who use them that’s the whole
point of doing archeology in the first
place right we want to learn something
about the sixth about the societies that
have existed by looking at their
technologies at their artifacts so the
question that I think lightning winter
is really asking is how did technologies
shape our society he was asking
question almost forty years ago now and
the technologies that were around that
in his time we’re very different than
the ones we have today right so the
personal computer back in 1980 was sort
of just catching on the idea of mobile
computing was really just a thought
experiment at that point and so the
kinds of technologies that Langton
winter looked at were much more mundane
and one of the examples that he uses
were the underpasses that were built on
the Southern State Parkway in Long
Island in New York and these underpasses
were designed by a man named Robert
Moses Robert Moses was probably the most
famous city planner of his time maybe
even of modern times and he was famous
in fact for inventing things like the
suburbs but he was also widely
considered to be a classist and a racist
and one of the things that Robert Moses
did when he built the Southern State
Parkway was he made the underpasses
about 20 inches shorter than underpasses
in other parts of the city and the
reason he did that was because he did
not want buses public transportation to
be able to access the fancy new Beach
that he built over in Jones Beach Long
Island and who was using public
transportation at the time well it was
minorities and immigrants and poor
people people that Robert Moses did not
want mingling on his new park and so
Robert Moses was really able to build
his politics directly into that
technology and that technology those
underpasses they’re there in the world
enforcing the politics of Robert Moses
and we have an example of this just up
the road here at Georgetown right
Georgetown does not have a metro stop
for example and the story that I’ve
heard as to why it doesn’t have a metro
stop is because the wealthy inhabitants
of Georgetown did not want the poor
migrants the immigrants minorities to
come to Georgetown on public transit now
I don’t know if that story is true
actually
in fact I imagine that if you if you
know Georgetown its built on the side of
a hill and there’s sort of a river right
next to it I imagine there’s probably
some really significant technological
and financial challenges to putting a
subway stop there it doesn’t really
matter whether that story is true or not
whether georgetown doesn’t have a subway
stop a metro stop because of anyone’s
intentional need to push people away or
for is just an accident the effect is
the same
you still can’t access Georgetown
through public transit and you still
can’t take a bus out to Jones Beach and
so when I think of the way that we build
our beliefs into our technologies right
the way that Robert Moses did or we
build our beliefs into the absence of
technology it doesn’t have to be that
way so I can imagine that DC the
political town that it is maybe the
residents got together and said you know
we think that any citizen of the
District of Columbia should be able to
access any part of this city at any time
on public transit if they did that if
they consider it to be a moral question
a question of ethics maybe they would
decide that they would find a way to
build a metro station there may be any
cost would be easy to overcome if people
were really dedicated to that but we
don’t have a metro stop in Georgetown
today and we’re not used to people
actually doing that and that’s the other
thing that lensing that Langdon winner
actually noticed was that people are
often very willing to endure a lot of
inconveniences for technological
progress but they’re in fact much less
willing to make any kind of
accommodation for social progress and
that’s one thing that I hope that we can
change we’ve got a lot of new
technologies right now I think we’ve all
sort of learned over the past couple of
years that social media shaped
technology in some very troubling ways
and I think we’re about to unleash
artificial intelligence onto the world
and I don’t get the sense that we
actually understand anything about how
that technology will eventually shape
our society and so I think that really
the core of what I’m trying to say here
today is that whenever any of us whether
we’re a developer or a user whenever we
introduce a new technology into our
lives we need to ask ourselves a few
questions first and we can start with
the question that lines in winter asked
do artifacts have politics now – the
answer to that question is always going
to be yes and I hope you realize that
now so really we need to find some
harder questions to ask ourselves which
is good we’re making progress
so let’s ask a more personal question
are the politics of this technology my
politics now you may in fact answer yes
to that question and that’s fine you can
sleep well at night if that’s the case
but I think more often than not what you
will find is that the politics of any
particular technology are very different
from your personal politics and so I
think you need to ask yourself one more
question what is my responsibility to
restore the balance that this technology
has disrupted now I’m not saying that
you need to give up technology entirely
I think that would be a very difficult
thing I’m thinking of us could do it and
I think we should we get a lot of good
benefits out of using technology and I’m
not really suggesting that you need to
sort of change the world all on your own
all at once what I do think though is
that if we all decide to make some very
small changes then maybe we can start to
try to restore the human connections
that technology seems to have broken so
maybe you feel like social media keeps
you in your echo chamber well one thing
you might want to do is to go out and
have a real conversation with someone
you disagree with
maybe over coffee or something maybe you
believe that human relationships that
love and attraction shouldn’t be reduced
to swipes left or swipes right invite
some friends over for a blind date you
can be creative here because I think
actually it doesn’t matter what you do
what does matter is that you do
something that you do something to help
shape the society the way that you want
it to be shaped because if you don’t
then I think either by intention or by
accident our technologies will shape our
society for us and we will all
eventually be left behind very much like
those people waiting for the metro to
Georgetown or the bus to Jones Beach thank you
ago back in 1980 there was a young
political scientist named Langdon winner
who asked his colleagues a question and
it was supposed to be just a
philosophical question and it was at the
time but it’s one that’s become I think
much more pertinent today the question
that Langdon Wintour asked was do
artifacts have politics and I usually
ask that question to a roomful of
students and I get a lot of really big
wildered looks like the looks that I see
right now I used to think that that was
because my students were just like
deeply conflicted by this very
philosophical question it turns out
though that no one was actually doing
their homework and the students had no
idea what I was actually asking them so
I usually end up giving them the answer
and I will give you the answer as well
that answer is yes artifacts do indeed
have politics but that’s not a very
satisfactory answer right and there’s
always one really smart student who will
raise their hand and say well what do
you mean by politics and what do you
mean by artifacts and I think that’s a
fair question so let’s start with that
first word artifacts it’s it’s kind of a
strange word I think to hear in this
context because when we think about it
we usually think of artifacts as the
kinds of things that archeologists dig
up out of the ground and that we put in
museums right they’re cultural artifacts
but if you use the word technological
artifact that starts to become a bit
more resonant right we sort of
understand what a technological artifact
is and the smartphone that we all have
in our pockets is a technological
artifact just like a piece of pottery
that gets dug up out of the ground in
ancient Greece and that pottery actually
in its day was probably a very cutting
edge technology just like our
smartphones are now that may be obvious
when you say it that way but I think
there’s some value in remembering that
all of the artifacts that we that we dig
up out of the ground all of the
artifacts that we carry around with us
today all of those technologies they
tell us something about the people who
build them they tell us something about
the people who use them that’s the whole
point of doing archeology in the first
place right we want to learn something
about the sixth about the societies that
have existed by looking at their
technologies at their artifacts so the
question that I think lightning winter
is really asking is how did technologies
shape our society he was asking
question almost forty years ago now and
the technologies that were around that
in his time we’re very different than
the ones we have today right so the
personal computer back in 1980 was sort
of just catching on the idea of mobile
computing was really just a thought
experiment at that point and so the
kinds of technologies that Langton
winter looked at were much more mundane
and one of the examples that he uses
were the underpasses that were built on
the Southern State Parkway in Long
Island in New York and these underpasses
were designed by a man named Robert
Moses Robert Moses was probably the most
famous city planner of his time maybe
even of modern times and he was famous
in fact for inventing things like the
suburbs but he was also widely
considered to be a classist and a racist
and one of the things that Robert Moses
did when he built the Southern State
Parkway was he made the underpasses
about 20 inches shorter than underpasses
in other parts of the city and the
reason he did that was because he did
not want buses public transportation to
be able to access the fancy new Beach
that he built over in Jones Beach Long
Island and who was using public
transportation at the time well it was
minorities and immigrants and poor
people people that Robert Moses did not
want mingling on his new park and so
Robert Moses was really able to build
his politics directly into that
technology and that technology those
underpasses they’re there in the world
enforcing the politics of Robert Moses
and we have an example of this just up
the road here at Georgetown right
Georgetown does not have a metro stop
for example and the story that I’ve
heard as to why it doesn’t have a metro
stop is because the wealthy inhabitants
of Georgetown did not want the poor
migrants the immigrants minorities to
come to Georgetown on public transit now
I don’t know if that story is true
actually
in fact I imagine that if you if you
know Georgetown its built on the side of
a hill and there’s sort of a river right
next to it I imagine there’s probably
some really significant technological
and financial challenges to putting a
subway stop there it doesn’t really
matter whether that story is true or not
whether georgetown doesn’t have a subway
stop a metro stop because of anyone’s
intentional need to push people away or
for is just an accident the effect is
the same
you still can’t access Georgetown
through public transit and you still
can’t take a bus out to Jones Beach and
so when I think of the way that we build
our beliefs into our technologies right
the way that Robert Moses did or we
build our beliefs into the absence of
technology it doesn’t have to be that
way so I can imagine that DC the
political town that it is maybe the
residents got together and said you know
we think that any citizen of the
District of Columbia should be able to
access any part of this city at any time
on public transit if they did that if
they consider it to be a moral question
a question of ethics maybe they would
decide that they would find a way to
build a metro station there may be any
cost would be easy to overcome if people
were really dedicated to that but we
don’t have a metro stop in Georgetown
today and we’re not used to people
actually doing that and that’s the other
thing that lensing that Langdon winner
actually noticed was that people are
often very willing to endure a lot of
inconveniences for technological
progress but they’re in fact much less
willing to make any kind of
accommodation for social progress and
that’s one thing that I hope that we can
change we’ve got a lot of new
technologies right now I think we’ve all
sort of learned over the past couple of
years that social media shaped
technology in some very troubling ways
and I think we’re about to unleash
artificial intelligence onto the world
and I don’t get the sense that we
actually understand anything about how
that technology will eventually shape
our society and so I think that really
the core of what I’m trying to say here
today is that whenever any of us whether
we’re a developer or a user whenever we
introduce a new technology into our
lives we need to ask ourselves a few
questions first and we can start with
the question that lines in winter asked
do artifacts have politics now – the
answer to that question is always going
to be yes and I hope you realize that
now so really we need to find some
harder questions to ask ourselves which
is good we’re making progress
so let’s ask a more personal question
are the politics of this technology my
politics now you may in fact answer yes
to that question and that’s fine you can
sleep well at night if that’s the case
but I think more often than not what you
will find is that the politics of any
particular technology are very different
from your personal politics and so I
think you need to ask yourself one more
question what is my responsibility to
restore the balance that this technology
has disrupted now I’m not saying that
you need to give up technology entirely
I think that would be a very difficult
thing I’m thinking of us could do it and
I think we should we get a lot of good
benefits out of using technology and I’m
not really suggesting that you need to
sort of change the world all on your own
all at once what I do think though is
that if we all decide to make some very
small changes then maybe we can start to
try to restore the human connections
that technology seems to have broken so
maybe you feel like social media keeps
you in your echo chamber well one thing
you might want to do is to go out and
have a real conversation with someone
you disagree with
maybe over coffee or something maybe you
believe that human relationships that
love and attraction shouldn’t be reduced
to swipes left or swipes right invite
some friends over for a blind date you
can be creative here because I think
actually it doesn’t matter what you do
what does matter is that you do
something that you do something to help
shape the society the way that you want
it to be shaped because if you don’t
then I think either by intention or by
accident our technologies will shape our
society for us and we will all
eventually be left behind very much like
those people waiting for the metro to
Georgetown or the bus to Jones Beach thank you
Please follow and like us: