Can technology be “read”?
I want to try out a concept that has been on my mind since college, when I had an idea for my first manuscript (back when it was obvious that I'd write and publish at least a handful, immediately and without angst): close-reading technology.*
Just as the form of literature encourages you to read and interpret it a certain way, just as the delivery and pretext of a speech provides auxiliary meaning, so too does the apparatus and context of technology encourage you to deploy it in particular manner.
So how does one “close read” technology? In literature and poetry, I might close read by selecting specific passages from the text and analyzing their form. For example, these lines from The Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats:
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
This line creates a rhythmic cadence using dactyls, a foot with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. These dactyls, which are out of place in the mostly iambic poem, read more unevenly than the iambic feet. Placed within the only enjambment in the poem, the uneven dactyls contribute to giving the lengthy lines a disordered feel. The length of the line, as well as the way the dactyls seem to trip forward when read, makes the thought come off as a sort of ramble on behalf of the poet speaker. It is as if he is lost in the thoughts of the lake water, like they are haunting him.
Similarly, one might “close read” a hammer by examining elements of its form and design to determine how it argues it should be used. The long handle and weighted tip suggests – arguably demands – that it be used to swing, generating centrifugal force. The grip on the handle teaches you where to hold it for “best” performance. The blunt tip implies striking, not piercing. You see what I mean.
Why close reading, of all things? Close reading offers a schema for making the implicit explicit, particularly at the level of form – and here I’ll also point to my first post on Corey Robin’s approach to understanding conservative epistemologies.
Technology is typically thought of as a neutral tool, to be wielded for good or evil (but usually good), and also as a force that naturally evolves towards efficiency (for whom?) and benefit (to whom)? This has always been the contention – it is what the Luddites were revolting against, and consider how we view the Luddites. (Do you know anything about their movement besides that their name is a derogatory epithet for the technology-adverse? I didn't, until I specifically sought out a monograph on their history!)
Luckily, the GenAI movement has made this distinction extremely clear, and a significant number of us find ourselves more aligned with the Luddites than with Silicon Valley. Take, for example, these recent headlines about AI:
Fix The Risk, Don’t Ban The Tool: How To Secure GenAI At Work
5 myths holding back GenAI in the workplace
GenAI Complacency: The Costly Inaction in the Nordics
1 in 5 workers are misusing GenAI, according to a new survey
Notice the emphasis on moving forward (“costly complacency”, “holding back”, “secure”; there is a proper way to use GenAI and some people are “misusing” it, which could be you) and assumption that GenAI will become more widespread, whether you, the reader or professional, want it to or not.
On the other hand, there is a strong desire to cut through the hype and analyze what, exactly, GenAI can do, and what it means to use it:
GenAI in healthcare brings the need for risk policies
Do your students know the consequences of AI use on an internship programme?
GenAI — friend or foe?
I agree. I once wanted to close-read the internet (and I may get to that) but close-reading GenAI platforms is even more fruitful. Next post, I'll get into the details.
Thanks for listening. ~
*As an aside, I vividly remember wandering campus on a cold April night, feeling angsty the way 21-year-olds about to graduate do, wondering what I should do with my life. In a flash of insight I can only describe as devastating naiveté, I thought: I just need to decide what I would regret not doing, and then do that. Ipso facto, I will never have regrets; and once I accomplish that thing, I can live the rest of my life in tranquility. Were it so easy as being 21 makes it seem!