You take the AI, I’ll take my iPod (if I can find it).

By Sy Boles | Harvard Staff Writer | Harvard Gazette

A recent Pew study Report It found that 40 percent of Americans expect AI to have a negative impact on society, compared to 16 percent who predict a positive impact. Nearly two-thirds, or 63 percent, say AI is advancing too fast.

The outrage doesn’t stop there. Americans spend more Four hours a day on their phones, and many of them don’t like it. The Internet helps people get away from their devices with tips and tricks (put your phone in grayscale; charge it in another room) or even Their smartphone cages In total, about 169,000 people visit a dedicated Reddit community Digital minimalism every week

the analyst Sarah Watson ’07 has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate and other publications about turning the tide of technology from individual benefit to collective good. In this conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Watson, who was a Fellow and Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society from 2013 to 2019, shares insights about the “tech-lash” and how it might unfold.

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What is behind AI resistance?

People are taking problems due to lack of consent. I’m seeing more talk about, “I’m not willing to use this thing, but it’s being launched on all my interfaces, software upgrades, on all my devices, without needing it.”

Yes, AI backlash is related to job anxiety, especially for new graduates. But it goes beyond that: the vision of the future pushed by tech moguls isn’t necessarily a vision we all buy into. What we’re seeing is resistance to that vision of the future — in the sense that we’re not representing that future, and we’re searching for ways to resist the inevitability framework and reclaim our own vision of the future.

I think that’s why you’re watching Data center resistance In particular: it is the most material instantiation of this technological change on display in our community. There is concern about environmental impact — water, energy use, noise pollution — mixed with a bit of NIMBYism. But data center resistance is working through community organizing on a city-by-city scale that can be influential in the absence of state or federal regulation.

How does the AI ​​backlash fit into the history of resistance to new technologies?

When Victorian railways were introduced, they caused nausea and “railway neurosis”. I also look back at film history: early films replicated the proscenium arch, teaching us how we as theatergoers were supposed to watch films. Designers have always understood that we need familiar cues to learn to relate to new interfaces and media.

All technologies have their growing pains, but Intel researchers Genevieve Bell Says that moral panics arise when technologies change time, space, and our relationships to each other. An obvious parallel is the Luddite movement. But I always remind people that the Luddites weren’t resisting the textile machines themselves: they were resisting the job losses and loss of social support that came with automation.

Beyond AI, what trends are you paying attention to in contemporary resistance to technology?

I’m noticing a resurgence of interest in going offline, ‘grandma hobbies’ like knitting or crochet.

I’m noticing a resurgence of interest in going offline, “grandma’s hobbies” like knitting or crochet. Aesthetics like punk jeans, hand lettering, collages. Another version of this is Cyberdecks — people build their own custom-built computers and keyboards in converted purses or suitcases. It’s all about highly customized, hyper-personalized and increasing control over our devices. I would put iPods are also in this category — People finding vintage iPods and saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have my entire music collection without ads, without requiring a WiFi connection?” There is a special desire to be offline. I know people with flip phones or light phone Device LL Bean is selling boat bags embroidered with “analog” and “off the grid.” Land’s End catalog has announced “Analog Summer”. The trend is real.

This trend is clearly what is common “Friction-maxing,” But I also think it’s a bit of a denial of the economic rationale behind these platforms that has led us down the rabbit hole of algorithmic attention. I see it as a form of defying the system. Of course, some of that still boils down to consumer behavior — the irony of posting on Instagram what you carry in your analog bag — but to me it’s a reflection of, “Well, if we’re a market economy, one of the best tools I have to resist this market direction is to demand alternatives and reflect that in my consumer behavior.”

The other underlying theme is that we’re not just taking our attention back, we’re trying to reassert the body we have. These trends have a sort of nostalgic, tangible, tactile factor. The Y2K-aesthetic CD player was a pleasant, tactile experience. We enjoyed typing on a mechanical keyboard as opposed to a glass screen.

Lack of control—whether something like that Australian under-16 social media banned or White House likely to verify AI model — Do any of these on-the-margin behavioral changes add up?

The saying goes that law always follows technology. And the tension is how to create effective rules that don’t stifle innovation. That being said, we can certainly push for policies like prohibition NDA for data center development. Youth protection of any kind has historically been the easiest bipartisan path, especially when it comes to mental health and children’s relationship with or consent to chatbots and the use of AI analogies.

I have to go back Lawrence Lessig’s Four Methods What governs people’s relationship with technology: laws, rules, markets and architecture or codes. Norms and architecture — how we actually design these things — are valid levers for shaping how technology emerges and how we adopt it.

I’m excited about the groundswell I’m seeing around technology resistance. I’m inspired by the literacy around this, the sense that people are finding ways to communicate their sense of agency and channel it in productive ways. Trends like analog summer, or establishing the norm that we don’t leave our phones on the table: it’s the scale of change that can spur a larger collective conversation.

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This is the story is reprinted with permission From the Harvard Gazette.

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