We live in an ever-changing world, in constant flux and never static. Since the dawn of civilization man has since aimed to conquer the natural world. A quest that has lead us to inventing everything from primitive stone tools, to our language systems and all the way till our present day world with all its bells and whistles. One thing can be said about these transformations is that historically it served to purpose of increasing Human efficiency. In recent times nothing has arguably impacted the modern world more than the advent of the computer. It unlocked the digital dimension that had otherwise remained invisible to us previously. So what effect has this had on Us? Well there are many factors, such as More efficient problem solving, Automation, increased access to information, greater reach/speed of our communications, Individual Empowerment and much more. However with all this comes side effects, which is what we will be focusing on, In particular How Digital Technologies have impacted Human processes.
Firstly lets unpack Efficiency, so obviously computers have allowed us to process and keep track of data at higher and faster rates than ever before, which when talking about monotonous tasks, it is largely advantageous. Take for example finding a word in a large body of text, or an outlier in a large number set, or just about any task with codified steps. The computer will generally beat the Human to it every time. So it’s natural that we use them for many areas of our work. For this reason the majority of jobs can (and have) been broken down into a step-based procedures to accommodate the use of computers. Think of all the time this has saved us, and the absolute precision that computing allows us to execute.
A down side to relying on computers for our work is that it encourages in-the-box thinking. Now this could be due to its infrastructure being largely coded, algorithmic or possibly due to the binary nature of computers. The effect of this on its users is apparent, we have become increasingly robotic in the way we go about our work. Instead of man taming the computer, the two are converging. The synthesis of this is: Man is becoming more computer-like and computers are becoming more human-like. These can respectively be seen in our Bio-technologies and Ai developments.
There are circumstances where it’s not advantageous to rely on this computer logical, such as in problem solving. Often the best solutions will come from accidents and seemingly illogical steps. A great example is the discovery of penicillin: which Alexander Fleming accidentally left it out a petri dish, whilst he was on vacation. In fact one could argue that illogical thinking and mistake-making is at the heart of creativity and problem solving.
Now days the modern version of problem solving is hopping onto Google or your chosen search engine, which will feeds you the most popular and relevant answers, there is no option to filter by the ‘most creative’ or ‘unconventional’ for its practically a nightmare to program for.
So why are so many problems being solved then? I hear you ask. Well it’s simple, what computers lack in creativity they make up in sheer access to information and greater communicational reach. To say the least computers are great at connecting us. When we do have a problem, we have an ever-large repository of information at our fingertips (We do after all, live in an Information-Age). We are able to use this brute-force approach to solving problems. At the press of a button we can broadcast these problems to millions of people, and if you broadcast enough information out to enough people and one of them is bound to find a solution.
Lastly, let’s talk about the empowerment of the individual. As we are able to broadcast with ease to the world, the individual now has his own platform. The musician can become his own studio, the writer his own publisher and the presenter his own show. Computers have given us the opportunity to become independent and allowed for the entrepreneurial success of individuals. What this means for the future of our society is unclear however I for one and keeping hopeful that it will be for the better.
So what is the take-away of all this information? Computers are A powerful tool that allows us to complete many of our processes at great efficiency however this comes at a sacrifice of creativity and humanity in our work. Moving forward, we should draw the boundaries of what processes are appropriate to be left in the hands of computers, and when it is a job for us. Man should tame the computer! This would be a crucial step in moving forward in this ever increasing digital world.
