Dumb Tech Can Be a Wise Choice
Do we really need automated door handles?
Automatic door handles? I know what you’re going to say: But what if my hands are full, or I am disabled, or if I want to prevent a thief from opening my door? Yes, there are use cases for almost any piece of technology. Sometimes, though, the benefits of a feature are mostly psychological. Product managers categorize features as either “buyer constraints” or “user constraints.” Pick-up trucks illustrate the difference well. People who shop for trucks will insist on certain features before buying one: towing capacity, four-wheel drive, off-road tires. Many of these trucks spend their useful lives traveling between suburban homes, downtown office buildings, and casual family dining restaurants. Nevertheless, the full complement of buyer constraints must be addressed by the manufacturer if it hopes to sell that truck. User constraints, on the other hand, are the features we really need for the product to be usable. Your new truck definitely needs good suspension, brakes, and windshield wipers, for example. For me, the salient feature of a good door handle is that it reliably opens the door.
Modern economies are structured to require constant growth. Everyone, whether in the private or public sector, relies on rising asset prices to fund a dignified retirement. Without economic growth, there are no profits, without profits there are no dividends, and without dividends there are no income taxes to fund social insurance programs. The cost of achieving growth is the endless consumption of concentrated natural resources. Geologists search for ever-more elusive deposits of minerals, deforestation and agriculture expand until land has been depleted of its nutrients, and fisheries drain the oceans of all human-edible aquatic life. And every new model year’s truck is bigger, more powerful, more “connected,” and more luxurious than the one before. All of these new features consume more exotic materials, require more energy for the software and hardware that makes them work, and—as a product matures—become less functional and more whimsical. Air bags? Huge upgrade—has saved many lives. Apple CarPlay? Not as compelling, in my opinion. But the latter probably sells cars.
Some of the latest technology that is supposed to be improving our lives is not only of limited usefulness (if we’re being honest), but it is just something else waiting to break down. Consider the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex French Door Smart Refrigerator. Good Housekeeping loves it: “One of the most impressive features we’ve tested is the AI-powered camera inside the fridge, which automatically tracks what you add and remove. You can check what’s inside remotely and even get recipe suggestions based on what you have — though our testers noted that the tracking isn’t always perfect” [emphasis added]. You’ve got to be kidding me.
In a world where we struggle to rein in carbon pollution, withhold defensive assistance from a nation to get a “good deal” on minerals, and face an increasingly unstable electric grid, we should celebrate a home appliance that relies on (AI) software that increasingly demands city-size amounts of power? I think not. Are you looking for a recipe? There’s an app for that. It’s called a cookbook. No batteries required. Wondering whether you should buy more milk? Open the refrigerator door and look inside. Research and development are not an endlessly upward arcing rainbow of progress. Our lives today are definitely better than were those of people who lived hundreds of years ago. The refrigerator itself is an incredibly valuable piece of technology. Maybe we could make them a little better (a little more energy efficient, more environmentally friendly refrigerant chemicals), but there is no need for a household refrigeration “moon shot”: we’ve pretty well solved that problem and can move on. If refrigerator ennui starves appliance manufacturers of marketing pizzaz, then I would argue that that is the real problem: We should be thinking more about how we can live well without having to build more stuff just for the sake of buying it.
The notion of reduced economic growth is a very controversial issue. We panic at the thought of a slowing economy because we need to spend money to make money so we can spend more money later. What do refrigerator (or car, or computer) manufacturers do if most people have everything they really need? How would they pay employees, and what would those employees do in such a low-demand environment? Guaranteed basic income is not a solution, because any value you select for that income will inevitably come to represent the cost of subsistence living. There will be no golden age where people are pursuing their passions, because they won’t be able to afford to. Everyone will make the same amount of money and spend it on the same basic food and housing—all provided by the owners of the robots. If we want to halt—let alone reverse—our species’ impact on the global climate and on environmental degradation more generally, we will instead need to embrace an ethos of sharing and maintaining public resources more often and equitably than we have become accustomed to.
This does not imply a centrally planned economy in the sense of the old Eastern bloc: I visited East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell and I know what that looks like—it’s as if you stepped out of a Technicolor movie into a black and white world. We will have to be more creative, to find a third way that is not what we’re doing now and also not what Communist societies did before. Redistribution in the form of higher taxation of the super-wealthy must be part of any credible alternative arrangement. But we also must be willing to openly question our collective energy expenditures on the basis of their ecological impact. When is good enough good enough? How do we decide? Who makes that decision? Today in most parts of the world these decisions are the aggregate result of billions of individuals making personal economic choices. There is much to be said for this system, because it rather gracefully alleviates the burden of acquiring, analyzing, and acting on the information about needs and wants that is held in all of our private brains. Yet it is not a foolproof system, because, well, witness the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex French Door Smart Refrigerator.