Session 1: Reflection on "The Machine is Us/ing Us"

When I was watching the video “The machine is Us/using us”, a question come to that why people have this kind of negative reflection on technology since it was design to serve people originally. Being used by machines implies that we are becoming impotent, unprotesting consumers and loosing critical judgmental abilities. Are we really like that when faced with the advancement of technology?

Then I tried to think about where this worries come from. Here is an idea put up by some scholars that all kinds of technology no longer serve for its primary purpose which it was designed for. Candles, being a very supportive example, were created to make light to meet basic living needs. However, candles are still popular commodities in stores but more for decoration or other purposes. Computer technology, also being a machine, is the same. With decades of years’ development and advancement, the function of it nowadays has goon much much farther than the original goals before. It is used for entertainment, education, management, finance and so on. However, these fabulous following changes and advancement of technology, or more specifically in new media, brings about many problems and cause serious consequences. Some social network mobile apps, for instance, are designed to serve people’s need of getting in touch with friends with a more interesting experience. With wider and wider of consumers and profit-seekers, however, we can also hear from tons of news saying that sexual harassment, fraud, or privacy disclosure almost happen everyday because of too much credence people give to it.

It actually reminds me of an idea that it is the subsequent development and change after a machine or technology is introduced that makes it somehow out of its original track and out of control of us.

But I think we cannot simply put it that way that “Machine is using us”. Rather, I would agree more that Machine is us. It is kind of within us, created by us, used by us and improved by us. It may came out in a very limited version, like the internet, just serving our most urgent and basic needs. Then according to our changing requirements, we tend to revise it to be a more advanced version to fulfill more jobs. There are mistakes, like us, that a machine can turn into chaotic or immoral, and then we fix it. We are not just sitting there, accepting what the machines gives and being impotent consumers, we are always being active and progressive to use the machine and make it better.