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♪[Jazz music]♪

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So yeah, being one of the first

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net culture or computers in society writers

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was, strategically, a poor move for me.

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And I'm living proof, though, [br]you can still survive it,

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if you can get through it somehow, [br]by answering e-mail more slowly

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It's funny,

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I wrote some notes because I thought [br]I should be responsible,

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because you guys are real computer studies,

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computer science people,[br]as opposed to just,

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you know,

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your average,[br]digitally illiterate audience.

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So I don't really need to make the case[br]- I probably don't -

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on why learning something about [br]digital technology is a smart thing,

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because you guys have already[br]made that choice.

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But something that occurred to me [br]on the way here, actually,

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that you might not realize as young people

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if you don't mind being called that

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...is that it's very hard to get

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an accurate sense of the biases [br]of the digital media environment...

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...when you've been raised inside it.

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In other words, what I want [br]to suggest to you is that

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those of us who are old enough to have [br]experienced and consciously experienced

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the shift from a pre-digital media [br]environment to a digital media environment

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actually

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understand something or sense something[br]or experience something

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[br]about the biases of digital technology

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that is relatively difficult for those [br]of you who have been raised

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with digital technology to get.

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Right now this is the opposite argument [br]I made through most of my career.

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In 1995, I wrote a book called, [br]Playing the Future, where I argued that,

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"Don't worry, you grown ups![br]

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Digital technology is coming [br]and you feel overwhelmed.

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But you guys are digital immigrants [br]whereas kids are digital natives.

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So you'll speak the language like [br]an immigrant, they'll speak like a native.

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You're always going to feel [br]slightly out of place and unsure,

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and every time you have a hypertext link,

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you're gonna be a disoriented [br]because we're not used to that,

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whereas kids are going to experience [br]that very naturally.

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That what looks disjointed to us, [br]will be a natural terrain for them.

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And they will have command, [br]don't worry, the kids are alright."

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But as I've grown older, and [br]as I've watched where cyberspace has gone,

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and where our culture has gone, or hasn't,

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I realize that some of my elders were [br]actually more right about this than I was.

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And in reading all the

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finally catching up [br]with who I was supposed to read,

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when I was younger, McCluen and Ong, [br]and all the great media theorists.

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I would read about the digital or[br]the media environments,

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and this notion that McCluen had that,

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if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't [br]be able to tell you what it is, right?

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Because the fish is swimming in the water.[br]The fish not aware of the water.

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If you ask someone who is raised [br]in a television environment,

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"Oh, what about the impact of television [br]on you?"

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You can't say it because you're living [br]in it.

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You're living in that media environment.

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Likewise, those of us who are living in [br]a digital media environment,

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it's very difficult for us [br]to parse its effect,

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for us to feel what it is

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for us to understand the difference [br]between

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what it is to be a human being

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and what it is to be a digital being.

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And

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being able to parse it, though, [br]being able to begin to look at that

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What Norbert Weinert used to call,

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"the human use of human beings."

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He was one of the first people to talk [br]about cybernetics

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I think he invented the word, actually, [br]back when, cybernetics.

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Even though it got stolen.

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He was really looking at as we develop [br]a computer environment,

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how will we recognize the difference

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between humans and the machines [br]that we're in?

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How will we understand how to create [br]a human,

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or a humanity-encouraging, [br]digital media environment?

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Now the reason why I think this [br]is important is because most of my peers

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strongly disagree with this sentiment

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Most of my peers, and call them [br]the sort of,

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the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley,

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Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson,

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all the way to Ray Kurzwhile [br]on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey.

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There's this sense, and I used to have [br]some of it,

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that is uncomfortably consonant with [br]corporate capitalism.

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But that's another story.

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this sort of letter ripped sense [br]about technology

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That

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human beings are merely one stage

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in information's inevitable evolution [br]towards greater states of complexity.

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And they tell this very compelling story

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about the beginning of time all the way [br]through now.

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That matter has been groping [br]toward greater states of complexity.

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That we had atoms became molecules[br]and molecules became

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sort of these weird pre-proto-life things[br]which became cells

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and now we have this whole life thing [br]that happened.

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And life got very complex[br]through evolution

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and we had people

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And people built machines,

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and machines are just sort of in that big[br]blue, overtake humanity moment.

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And when they do,

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then machines, our computers, our networks[br]will be the real host

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for the evolution of information

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and we human beings can tend [br]to those machines

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or, at best, upload our consciousness

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and then they will continue that journey [br]for us.

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You know, and each one has [br]a different metaphor for explaining it

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You know, whether it's Kevin talking about

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what technology wants, right? [br]What technology wants,

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like it really wants.

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It's not bias towards something, but [br]it wants something,

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we've made this thing.

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Just as God made people, [br]people made technology,

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and this child will go on [br]wanting something.

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Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk [br]about the singularity,

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which I'm sure you've all read [br]or heard about, even on,

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if you find out about it in Vice Magazine[br]or anything, at this point

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The idea that technology reaches [br]this point of,

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not self-consciousness or self-awareness [br]necessarily, but it just surpasses us

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It becomes this thing and can keep going.

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It's a...

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for me it's a discomforting view[br]of humanity

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but it's also, I would argue, [br]an incorrect one, you know?

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It's one that is...

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it's one that is the result of living [br]unconsciously in a digital media environment

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It's one where you let the digital media [br]environment dictate

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what you are and how you think [br]about the world

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rather than maintaining some [br]sense of humanity in that.

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So, what's interesting to me

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as I look at the history of computing, [br]which now we have

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and as we look at computers in society, [br]which is a real thing.

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I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago,[br]when we taught courses like this,

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it was futurism.

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Computers in Society was a course in,

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"What's it gonna be like someday [br]when people have e-mail?"

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I mean, there were times, and I'm sure [br]you were in those conversations

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when people like me used to go [br]to a cocktail party

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or go to a publisher, [br]or explain to a magazine editor.

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Someday people are going to have [br]their own computers

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They are gonna send messages to eachother [br]using little text editors

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using, you know, word processors,

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and they would literally laugh us [br]out of the room.

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They did not, it seemed so outrageous, [br]that - Or they'd walk around

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No, you're not gonna have [br]to implant chips in people,

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they're gonna walk around with phones that[br]are gonna track them everywhere they go

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they're gonna do this voluntarily

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They're gonna give all their information .[br]No one believed us.

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But, of course that happened.

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But, the thing to me that's interesting [br]about computer history,

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if we're gonna follow it from [br]the history of humanity

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rather than the history of [br]technology, right?

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Let's not worry about paper tape [br]to punch cards to tape to discs

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to hard drives to RAM.

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Let's not worry about machine evolution.

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But you look at the difference [br]in people, right?

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If we look at history as the human story [br]rather than the story of stuff

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then the interesting thing becomes

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the big switch, I think, is the shift from[br]a pre-literate to a literate society.

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When we look at the impact of [br]the printing press.

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Do we talk about it in terms of

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"Oh, look! [br]These rooms filled up with books!"

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No, that's not the part [br]that's interesting.

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The part that is interesting is [br]people learned to read

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and then when they learned to read,

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they had personal interpretations [br]of the Bible, right?

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We had a Protestant Reformation[br]with people rebelling against the Church

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We had the idea of "one man, one vote"

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because everyone has [br]their own perspective.

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It coincided with prospective painting.

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It coincided with central banking.

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And all of these other, very...

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analogous

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human inventions that were all about [br]people having individual perspectives,

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"one man, one vote"[br]it led to the Enlightenment

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and all this other stuff consumerism,

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Industrial Era and everything else.

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When we look at digital technology [br]I think we have to look at it that way.

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In other words, what is[br]the difference between

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a pre-literate digital society and [br]a post-literate digital society?

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You know, I'm over arguing for [br]digital literacy.

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I think digital literacy is inevitable, [br]you know?

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I feel like I'm making that - when I...[br]it's my main talk that I do.

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It's like "Programmer be programmed!"

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And I wrote this book,[br]Programmer Be Programmed.

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We have to learn to program.[br]If you don't learn how to program,

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you're just swimming blindly [br]in a sea of information.

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Kids don't understand the biases [br]of the technologies they use.

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If you ask a kid [br]what Facebook's for,

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he'll say Facebook's here[br]to help him make friends.

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But we all know Facebook is [br]really not here

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it's really here to monetize [br]the social graft and all that.

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And then arguing, [br]the Chinese are gonna come and take our military

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and the Iranians are gonna take [br]our banking and we gotta take something

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any argument I can to try to have schools[br]teach basic digital literacy in elementary schools

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junior schools and high schools, [br]so that we're not stupid. which we are

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And it's like arguing, you imagine when[br]they invented text

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Oh we're gonna have to learn 22 letters[br]which is 22 letter alphabet at the time

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we're gonna have to learn these letters[br]in order to read

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Well, let the rabbis read, [br]let the kings read, but the people don't

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have to read, do we, we regular people. yes.

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it's like people are so confused [br]on this angle

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but we will win this part war.[br]just as people learned how to use e-mail

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and people decided to use phones[br]people will eventually, we will teach kids

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how to use digital technology[br]they won't be completely blind

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the misperception now is that [br]learning how to program is kind of like

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becoming an auto mechanic[br]it's like "well I can drive a car"

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"why do I need to know how [br]it actually works"

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We're not talking about the difference[br]between an allround mechanic and a driver

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we're talking about the difference between[br]a driver and a passenger

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a programmer is the user of the machine

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If you don't understand the code[br]you're not using the machine

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You are the used You are maybe the customer[br]but you're not the producer

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And that's where you get to the real biases[br]of the digital age

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which are easy for those of us who are[br]around before that to get

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The bias of the digital age, [br]of the digital era is toward production

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That's why it's digital[br]where do we even get the word digits from

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Digits are the fingers. [br]They were ten fingers. Digital

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This is digital media. [br]This is media that is constructivist

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It's media that you make stuff with

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The media before digital [br]was all receive only

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It was all... they were no[br]Do you still read write-only

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read only files. Is that still existing?[br]Oh good