As We See It

The Internet of Things, or IOT, is an extremely hackable network that connects everything from household appliances to cars. To me, it's the ultimate example of technology that, once created, just doesn't need us—and I fear that the more tasks that are routinely, magically performed for us puny humans at the touch of a button by "smart" devices, the less capable we become.

There is, admittedly, a logical schism here: those magical devices are designed by humans—the big-brained folk who figured out how to create them. But far more people use those devices than design them. Few have any real understanding of how smartphones, Nest, or even Amazon buttons work—I sure as heck don't. As I suppose there always has been, there is a highly specialized class of worker-bee intelligentsia who design the devices, and a drone class that uses them. So what's the problem?

I worry that as our skill sets become more specialized, we are less adaptable. As skills become obsolete—steam-engine mechanic, coal miner, shorthand-taker, Fortran programmer—those who rely on those skills either learn new skills or suffer the consequences.

But how many people spend their working lives performing esoteric tasks on a computer, then come home to passively watch TV, or semipassively play video games? How many are incapable of performing the simplest physical tasks: repairing a window screen, replacing a vacuum-cleaner belt, unjamming a DisposAll? Worse yet, how many know how to change a tire or jump a dead battery?

Such folks are helpless in pretty simple circumstances, and helpless people die. Imagine the sodbusters of the 19th century, who had to break land, plant crops, raise and drive cattle, and build houses, outbuildings, and windbreaks. If they weren't versatile, they didn't survive. As Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) wrote, in his novel Time Enough for Love (1973): "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Heinlein was often a misanthrope and misogynist, but in this instance I agree with him. Even within our little world of audio, there is specialization: analogophiles and digiphiles rarely explore one another's domains. I proudly resist categorization, being equally inept at adjusting cartridge VTA and setting up a LAN.

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) was another shrewd observer of humanity, a Harvard MBA and WWII veteran who used his discharge pay to support his family until his short stories began to sell. He became an unlikely but prolific writer of hard-boiled adventure and science-fiction stories, often writing under pseudonyms to extend his reach. In 1982's Cinnamon Skin, his quixotic hero Travis McGee foresaw the tech revolution in the microcosm of a shopping mall:

Walking back through the mall to the exit nearest our part of the parking lot, we passed one shop which sold computers, printers, software, and games. It was packed with teenagers, the kind who wear wire rims and know what the new world is about. The clerks were indulgent, letting them program the computers. Two hundred yards away, near the six movie houses, a different kind of teenager shoved quarters into the space-war games, tensing over the triggers, releasing the eerie sounds of extraterrestrial combat. Any kid back in the computer store could have told the combatants that because there is no atmosphere in space, there is absolutely no sound at all. Perfect distribution: the future managers and the future managed ones. Twenty in the computer store, two hundred in the arcade.

The future managers have run on past us into the thickets of CP/M, M-Basic, Cobol, Fortran, Z-80, Apples, and Worms. Soon the bosses of the microcomputer revolution will sell us preprogrammed units for each household which will provide entertainment, print out news, purvey mail-order goods, pay bills, balance accounts, keep track of expenses, and compute taxes. But by then the future managers will be over on the far side of the thickets, dealing with bubble memories, machines that design machines, projects so esoteric our pedestrian minds cannot comprehend them. It will be the biggest revolution of all, bigger than the wheel, bigger than Franklin's kite, bigger than paper towels.

In the 36 years since that was published, much of the technology mentioned has become obsolete and has been replaced, emphasizing the speed with which change occurs.

Finally, Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was a writer and dreamer who envisioned what would happen to all those sophisticated, magical automatic devices after the humans left Earth, for Mars:

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!

In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk.

"Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling, "in the city of Allendale, California." It repeated the date three times for memory's sake. "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills."

Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes glided under electric eyes (footnote 1).

Such visions encourage me to try new things in the spirit of G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936): "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."—Bill Leebens

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Footnote 1: From the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains," 1950, later collected in The Martian Chronicles.