In Response to Artificial Unintelligence: Understanding the Limits of Technology
Our modern age often looks at technology as a limitless thing. Have a problem? We’ve got an app for it. Need something done? Have a computer do it. While we believe that technology can solve all of our problems — what happens when we reach the limits of technology?
In her latest book, Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard reminds us that technology is just as infallible as the people who make it. Artificial Unintelligence reminds the reader that if we understand the limits of technology, we can understand the “when and why to use technology,” an important lesson for our highly technological world.
Meredith Broussard is a data journalist who specializes in computational journalism and algorithmic accountability reporting. Her work, which has been featured in such places as The Atlantic, Slate, and Public Books, is a refreshing analysis of the way modern technologies intersect with humanity, or, in Broussard’s own words, “where human achievement intersects with human nature.” In Artificial Unintelligence, Broussard continues this theme by highlighting the limits of technology by helping the reader understand how technology works in the first place.
In the first chapter of Artificial Unintelligence, Broussard makes her opening argument against technochauvinism, that is to say, the belief that technology is always the solution to any given problem. While it is idealist to think that technology has the capacity to solve all of our problems, Broussard argues that anything still human-made has the capacity to be just as infallible as humanity. She states:
“There has never been, nor will there ever be, a technological innovation that moves us away from the essential problems of human nature. Why, then, do people persist in thinking there’s a sunny technological future just around the corner?”
Broussard’s goal in Artificial Unintelligence is to help people better understand technology at the core level so that they can avoid relying on it blindly for situations where it is not suited, and demand better technology where it is suited.
As a student of Digital Studies at Grand Valley State University, I’ve come across this theme of technological reliance and the limits of technology several times throughout my coursework. Broussard’s assertion that artificial intelligence is “unintelligent,” because it relies on the intelligence of the human reminds me of discussions of the neutrality of technology I studied in a course on Ethics in Digital Culture, particularly work by Robert Whelchel.
In a 1986 article in the IEEE Technology and Society Magazine I studied as part of Ethics in Digital Culture, Whelchel mirrors Broussard’s work, saying that, “Although technology, as a whole, is neither good nor evil, it cannot claim innocence,” (4). Whelchel is saying here that we as a society need to understand not only how we shape technology, but also how technology shapes us.
In her book, Broussard explores these themes as well, arguing that technology is not a positive force, or even a neutral one, but rather a conduit for humanity that decreasingly understands how it works. Broussard calls the reader forth to understand technology so that we can be better equipped to make decisions on when to use it, and when to not.
In my time as a Digital Studies student, I’ve discovered how we as a society have an undeniable relationship with technology that grows more complicated the more we rely on it. We create our technology, but it, too, as Whelchel states, recreates us through its influence. We grow reliant on technology, and while it can do fantastic things for us, if we grow too reliant on it, there is an opportunity to create more harm than good. As Broussard warns in her conclusion, it can even “cause unintentional harm inside complex social systems.”
Technology is not a limitless, infallible tool, but rather an incredibly human one. Broussard and other researchers like her remind us that as a society we need to be more open to learning about how our technologies work and how they affect us in order to avoid their damaging effects on society. For Broussard, this seemingly daunting task of understanding technology is incredibly important– as it will allow us to “live better, more connected lives and enjoy the many ways tech can and does enhance our world.”
And what is the first step to this enhanced world? Understanding the limits of technology so that we are better equipped to know when to use it.
