1 00:00:00,379 --> 00:00:06,880 ♪[Jazz music]♪ 2 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:09,418 So yeah, being one of the first 3 00:00:09,418 --> 00:00:14,398 net culture or computers in society writers 4 00:00:14,398 --> 00:00:19,058 was, strategically, a poor move for me. 5 00:00:19,758 --> 00:00:22,175 And I'm living proof, though, you can still survive it, 6 00:00:22,175 --> 00:00:26,975 if you can get through it somehow, by answering e-mail more slowly 7 00:00:29,135 --> 00:00:29,971 It's funny, 8 00:00:30,421 --> 00:00:33,121 I wrote some notes because I thought I should be responsible, 9 00:00:33,121 --> 00:00:35,591 because you guys are real computer studies, 10 00:00:35,591 --> 00:00:38,436 computer science people, as opposed to just, 11 00:00:38,816 --> 00:00:39,856 you know, 12 00:00:39,856 --> 00:00:44,786 your average, digitally illiterate audience. 13 00:00:45,736 --> 00:00:50,060 So I don't really need to make the case - I probably don't - 14 00:00:50,060 --> 00:00:54,380 on why learning something about digital technology is a smart thing, 15 00:00:54,380 --> 00:00:57,331 because you guys have already made that choice. 16 00:00:58,911 --> 00:01:02,655 But something that occurred to me on the way here, actually, 17 00:01:02,655 --> 00:01:06,425 that you might not realize as young people 18 00:01:06,425 --> 00:01:08,984 if you don't mind being called that 19 00:01:10,804 --> 00:01:13,578 ...is that it's very hard to get 20 00:01:13,578 --> 00:01:19,458 an accurate sense of the biases of the digital media environment... 21 00:01:19,458 --> 00:01:23,096 ...when you've been raised inside it. 22 00:01:23,096 --> 00:01:28,693 In other words, what I want to suggest to you is that 23 00:01:28,693 --> 00:01:34,913 those of us who are old enough to have experienced and consciously experienced 24 00:01:34,913 --> 00:01:41,573 the shift from a pre-digital media environment to a digital media environment 25 00:01:41,573 --> 00:01:43,123 actually 26 00:01:43,663 --> 00:01:47,463 understand something or sense something or experience something 27 00:01:47,463 --> 00:01:50,730 about the biases of digital technology 28 00:01:50,730 --> 00:01:55,610 that is relatively difficult for those of you who have been raised 29 00:01:55,610 --> 00:01:58,499 with digital technology to get. 30 00:01:58,499 --> 00:02:02,188 Right now this is the opposite argument I made through most of my career. 31 00:02:02,188 --> 00:02:06,443 In 1995, I wrote a book called, Playing the Future, where I argued that, 32 00:02:06,443 --> 00:02:08,187 "Don't worry, you grown ups! 33 00:02:08,187 --> 00:02:10,707 Digital technology is coming and you feel overwhelmed. 34 00:02:10,707 --> 00:02:15,054 But you guys are digital immigrants whereas kids are digital natives. 35 00:02:15,054 --> 00:02:18,564 So you'll speak the language like an immigrant, they'll speak like a native. 36 00:02:18,564 --> 00:02:21,490 You're always going to feel slightly out of place and unsure, 37 00:02:21,490 --> 00:02:24,190 and every time you have a hypertext link, 38 00:02:24,190 --> 00:02:27,260 you're gonna be a disoriented because we're not used to that, 39 00:02:27,260 --> 00:02:29,512 whereas kids are going to experience that very naturally. 40 00:02:29,512 --> 00:02:33,156 That what looks disjointed to us, will be a natural terrain for them. 41 00:02:33,156 --> 00:02:37,056 And they will have command, don't worry, the kids are alright." 42 00:02:37,056 --> 00:02:42,422 But as I've grown older, and as I've watched where cyberspace has gone, 43 00:02:42,422 --> 00:02:45,492 and where our culture has gone, or hasn't, 44 00:02:46,162 --> 00:02:51,728 I realize that some of my elders were actually more right about this than I was. 45 00:02:51,728 --> 00:02:53,240 And in reading all the 46 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:56,550 finally catching up with who I was supposed to read, 47 00:02:56,550 --> 00:03:01,021 when I was younger, McCluen and Ong, and all the great media theorists. 48 00:03:01,021 --> 00:03:05,069 I would read about the digital or the media environments, 49 00:03:05,069 --> 00:03:07,429 and this notion that McCluen had that, 50 00:03:07,429 --> 00:03:12,386 if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, right? 51 00:03:12,386 --> 00:03:17,977 Because the fish is swimming in the water. The fish not aware of the water. 52 00:03:17,977 --> 00:03:20,629 If you ask someone who is raised in a television environment, 53 00:03:20,629 --> 00:03:22,659 "Oh, what about the impact of television on you?" 54 00:03:22,659 --> 00:03:24,878 You can't say it because you're living in it. 55 00:03:24,878 --> 00:03:27,568 You're living in that media environment. 56 00:03:28,638 --> 00:03:31,716 Likewise, those of us who are living in a digital media environment, 57 00:03:31,716 --> 00:03:35,556 it's very difficult for us to parse its effect, 58 00:03:35,556 --> 00:03:38,675 for us to feel what it is 59 00:03:38,675 --> 00:03:42,276 for us to understand the difference between 60 00:03:43,406 --> 00:03:45,276 what it is to be a human being 61 00:03:45,276 --> 00:03:49,572 and what it is to be a digital being. 62 00:03:50,172 --> 00:03:50,895 And 63 00:03:53,085 --> 00:03:58,555 being able to parse it, though, being able to begin to look at that 64 00:03:58,555 --> 00:04:03,210 What Norbert Weinert used to call, 65 00:04:03,210 --> 00:04:04,510 "the human use of human beings." 66 00:04:04,510 --> 00:04:07,510 He was one of the first people to talk about cybernetics 67 00:04:07,510 --> 00:04:10,222 I think he invented the word, actually, back when, cybernetics. 68 00:04:10,222 --> 00:04:12,652 Even though it got stolen. 69 00:04:13,132 --> 00:04:17,423 He was really looking at as we develop a computer environment, 70 00:04:17,423 --> 00:04:19,113 how will we recognize the difference 71 00:04:19,113 --> 00:04:21,353 between humans and the machines that we're in? 72 00:04:21,353 --> 00:04:25,403 How will we understand how to create a human, 73 00:04:25,403 --> 00:04:29,403 or a humanity-encouraging, digital media environment? 74 00:04:31,394 --> 00:04:36,014 Now the reason why I think this is important is because most of my peers 75 00:04:36,014 --> 00:04:39,384 strongly disagree with this sentiment 76 00:04:39,384 --> 00:04:41,954 Most of my peers, and call them the sort of, 77 00:04:41,954 --> 00:04:44,964 the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley, 78 00:04:44,964 --> 00:04:48,324 Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, 79 00:04:49,074 --> 00:04:54,758 all the way to Ray Kurzwhile on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey. 80 00:04:54,758 --> 00:04:59,138 There's this sense, and I used to have some of it, 81 00:05:03,338 --> 00:05:06,268 that is uncomfortably consonant with corporate capitalism. 82 00:05:06,268 --> 00:05:07,858 But that's another story. 83 00:04:59,138 --> 00:05:03,338 this sort of letter ripped sense about technology 84 00:05:07,858 --> 00:05:08,778 That 85 00:05:09,232 --> 00:05:12,472 human beings are merely one stage 86 00:05:12,472 --> 00:05:17,232 in information's inevitable evolution towards greater states of complexity. 87 00:05:17,454 --> 00:05:20,234 And they tell this very compelling story 88 00:05:20,234 --> 00:05:23,774 about the beginning of time all the way through now. 89 00:05:23,774 --> 00:05:28,174 That matter has been groping toward greater states of complexity. 90 00:05:28,174 --> 00:05:33,135 That we had atoms became molecules and molecules became 91 00:05:33,135 --> 00:05:37,205 sort of these weird pre-proto-life things which became cells 92 00:05:37,205 --> 00:05:40,295 and now we have this whole life thing that happened. 93 00:05:40,295 --> 00:05:41,995 And life got very complex through evolution 94 00:05:41,995 --> 00:05:43,305 and we had people 95 00:05:43,305 --> 00:05:45,105 And people built machines, 96 00:05:45,105 --> 00:05:50,335 and machines are just sort of in that big blue, overtake humanity moment. 97 00:05:50,547 --> 00:05:51,837 And when they do, 98 00:05:52,007 --> 00:05:56,539 then machines, our computers, our networks will be the real host 99 00:05:56,539 --> 00:05:59,009 for the evolution of information 100 00:05:59,009 --> 00:06:02,173 and we human beings can tend to those machines 101 00:06:02,173 --> 00:06:04,743 or, at best, upload our consciousness 102 00:06:04,743 --> 00:06:08,263 and then they will continue that journey for us. 103 00:06:09,108 --> 00:06:11,988 You know, and each one has a different metaphor for explaining it 104 00:06:11,988 --> 00:06:14,528 You know, whether it's Kevin talking about 105 00:06:14,528 --> 00:06:17,759 what technology wants, right? What technology wants, 106 00:06:17,759 --> 00:06:19,869 like it really wants. 107 00:06:19,869 --> 00:06:22,728 It's not bias towards something, but it wants something, 108 00:06:22,728 --> 00:06:24,518 we've made this thing. 109 00:06:24,518 --> 00:06:27,628 Just as God made people, people made technology, 110 00:06:27,628 --> 00:06:30,978 and this child will go on wanting something. 111 00:06:32,117 --> 00:06:35,447 Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk about the singularity, 112 00:06:35,447 --> 00:06:40,067 which I'm sure you've all read or heard about, even on, 113 00:06:40,262 --> 00:06:44,262 if you find out about it in Vice Magazine or anything, at this point 114 00:06:44,284 --> 00:06:47,204 The idea that technology reaches this point of, 115 00:06:48,023 --> 00:06:52,023 not self-consciousness or self-awareness necessarily, but it just surpasses us 116 00:06:52,023 --> 00:06:55,103 It becomes this thing and can keep going. 117 00:06:56,512 --> 00:06:58,202 It's a... 118 00:07:01,132 --> 00:07:05,192 for me it's a discomforting view of humanity 119 00:07:05,192 --> 00:07:08,672 but it's also, I would argue, an incorrect one, you know? 120 00:07:08,672 --> 00:07:11,672 It's one that is... 121 00:07:13,042 --> 00:07:18,642 it's one that is the result of living unconsciously in a digital media environment 122 00:07:19,226 --> 00:07:22,926 It's one where you let the digital media environment dictate 123 00:07:22,926 --> 00:07:24,736 what you are and how you think about the world 124 00:07:24,736 --> 00:07:27,876 rather than maintaining some sense of humanity in that. 125 00:07:27,876 --> 00:07:30,016 So, what's interesting to me 126 00:07:30,016 --> 00:07:33,916 as I look at the history of computing, which now we have 127 00:07:33,916 --> 00:07:37,306 and as we look at computers in society, which is a real thing. 128 00:07:37,306 --> 00:07:40,081 I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when we taught courses like this, 129 00:07:40,081 --> 00:07:41,541 it was futurism. 130 00:07:41,541 --> 00:07:43,531 Computers in Society was a course in, 131 00:07:43,531 --> 00:07:46,331 "What's it gonna be like someday when people have e-mail?" 132 00:07:46,331 --> 00:07:48,851 I mean, there were times, and I'm sure you were in those conversations 133 00:07:48,851 --> 00:07:52,149 when people like me used to go to a cocktail party 134 00:07:52,149 --> 00:07:55,179 or go to a publisher, or explain to a magazine editor. 135 00:07:55,179 --> 00:07:57,919 Someday people are going to have their own computers 136 00:07:57,919 --> 00:08:01,429 They are gonna send messages to eachother using little text editors 137 00:08:01,429 --> 00:08:03,449 using, you know, word processors, 138 00:08:03,449 --> 00:08:05,999 and they would literally laugh us out of the room. 139 00:08:05,999 --> 00:08:10,699 They did not, it seemed so outrageous, that - Or they'd walk around 140 00:08:10,892 --> 00:08:12,932 No, you're not gonna have to implant chips in people, 141 00:08:12,932 --> 00:08:15,932 they're gonna walk around with phones that are gonna track them everywhere they go 142 00:08:15,932 --> 00:08:17,492 they're gonna do this voluntarily 143 00:08:17,492 --> 00:08:20,492 They're gonna give all their information . No one believed us. 144 00:08:20,492 --> 00:08:22,252 But, of course that happened. 145 00:08:22,252 --> 00:08:25,637 But, the thing to me that's interesting about computer history, 146 00:08:25,637 --> 00:08:29,122 if we're gonna follow it from the history of humanity 147 00:08:29,122 --> 00:08:31,307 rather than the history of technology, right? 148 00:08:31,307 --> 00:08:36,302 Let's not worry about paper tape to punch cards to tape to discs 149 00:08:36,302 --> 00:08:39,132 to hard drives to RAM. 150 00:08:39,132 --> 00:08:41,322 Let's not worry about machine evolution. 151 00:08:41,322 --> 00:08:44,292 But you look at the difference in people, right? 152 00:08:44,292 --> 00:08:50,042 If we look at history as the human story rather than the story of stuff 153 00:08:51,079 --> 00:08:53,459 then the interesting thing becomes 154 00:08:53,459 --> 00:09:02,059 the big switch, I think, is the shift from a pre-literate to a literate society. 155 00:09:02,149 --> 00:09:05,129 When we look at the impact of the printing press. 156 00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:06,572 Do we talk about it in terms of 157 00:09:06,572 --> 00:09:10,082 "Oh, look! These rooms filled up with books!" 158 00:09:10,082 --> 00:09:12,102 No, that's not the part that's interesting. 159 00:09:12,102 --> 00:09:15,032 The part that is interesting is people learned to read 160 00:09:15,032 --> 00:09:16,882 and then when they learned to read, 161 00:09:16,882 --> 00:09:19,962 they had personal interpretations of the Bible, right? 162 00:09:19,962 --> 00:09:23,372 We had a Protestant Reformation with people rebelling against the Church 163 00:09:23,372 --> 00:09:25,192 We had the idea of "one man, one vote" 164 00:09:25,192 --> 00:09:26,972 because everyone has their own perspective. 165 00:09:26,972 --> 00:09:29,142 It coincided with prospective painting. 166 00:09:29,142 --> 00:09:31,442 It coincided with central banking. 167 00:09:31,442 --> 00:09:34,092 And all of these other, very... 168 00:09:35,272 --> 00:09:36,812 analogous 169 00:09:37,642 --> 00:09:41,712 human inventions that were all about people having individual perspectives, 170 00:09:41,712 --> 00:09:43,712 "one man, one vote" it led to the Enlightenment 171 00:09:43,712 --> 00:09:45,712 and all this other stuff consumerism, 172 00:09:45,712 --> 00:09:49,192 Industrial Era and everything else. 173 00:09:49,372 --> 00:09:52,922 When we look at digital technology I think we have to look at it that way. 174 00:09:52,922 --> 00:09:54,932 In other words, what is the difference between 175 00:09:54,932 --> 00:09:59,952 a pre-literate digital society and a post-literate digital society? 176 00:09:59,952 --> 00:10:03,722 You know, I'm over arguing for digital literacy. 177 00:10:03,722 --> 00:10:07,582 I think digital literacy is inevitable, you know? 178 00:10:07,582 --> 00:10:11,684 I feel like I'm making that - when I... it's my main talk that I do. 179 00:10:11,684 --> 00:10:13,254 It's like "Programmer be programmed!" 180 00:10:13,254 --> 00:10:15,094 And I wrote this book, Programmer Be Programmed. 181 00:10:15,094 --> 00:10:17,264 We have to learn to program. If you don't learn how to program, 182 00:10:17,264 --> 00:10:20,544 you're just swimming blindly in a sea of information. 183 00:10:20,544 --> 00:10:23,634 Kids don't understand the biases of the technologies they use. 184 00:10:23,634 --> 00:10:25,314 If you ask a kid what Facebook's for, 185 00:10:25,314 --> 00:10:27,574 he'll say Facebook's here to help him make friends. 186 00:10:27,574 --> 00:10:28,974 But we all know Facebook is really not here 187 00:10:28,974 --> 00:10:32,104 it's really here to monetize the social graft and all that. 188 00:10:32,503 --> 00:10:35,823 And then arguing, the Chinese are gonna come and take our military 189 00:10:35,823 --> 00:10:39,083 and the Iranians are gonna take our banking and we gotta take something 190 00:10:39,163 --> 00:10:43,223 any argument I can to try to have schools teach basic digital literacy in elementary schools 191 00:10:43,343 --> 00:10:47,343 junior schools and high schools, so that we're not stupid. which we are 192 00:10:50,705 --> 00:10:54,705 And it's like arguing, you imagine when they invented text 193 00:10:54,903 --> 00:10:58,903 Oh we're gonna have to learn 22 letters which is 22 letter alphabet at the time 194 00:10:59,074 --> 00:11:01,514 we're gonna have to learn these letters in order to read 195 00:11:01,629 --> 00:11:04,539 Well, let the rabbis read, let the kings read, but the people don't 196 00:11:04,649 --> 00:11:06,999 have to read, do we, we regular people. yes. 197 00:11:07,069 --> 00:11:09,579 it's like people are so confused on this angle 198 00:11:09,732 --> 00:11:14,522 but we will win this part war. just as people learned how to use e-mail 199 00:11:14,661 --> 00:11:20,011 and people decided to use phones people will eventually, we will teach kids 200 00:11:20,159 --> 00:11:25,609 how to use digital technology they won't be completely blind 201 00:11:25,896 --> 00:11:29,896 the misperception now is that learning how to program is kind of like 202 00:11:29,984 --> 00:11:32,844 becoming an auto mechanic it's like "well I can drive a car" 203 00:11:32,919 --> 00:11:35,429 "why do I need to know how it actually works" 204 00:11:35,570 --> 00:11:39,000 We're not talking about the difference between an allround mechanic and a driver 205 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,740 we're talking about the difference between a driver and a passenger 206 00:11:41,740 --> 00:11:45,430 a programmer is the user of the machine 207 00:11:45,430 --> 00:11:48,280 If you don't understand the code you're not using the machine 208 00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:52,590 You are the used You are maybe the customer but you're not the producer 209 00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:57,846 And that's where you get to the real biases of the digital age 210 00:11:57,846 --> 00:12:00,956 which are easy for those of us who are around before that to get 211 00:12:01,110 --> 00:12:05,520 The bias of the digital age, of the digital era is toward production 212 00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:09,520 That's why it's digital where do we even get the word digits from 213 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:12,620 Digits are the fingers. They were ten fingers. Digital 214 00:12:12,620 --> 00:12:19,330 This is digital media. This is media that is constructivist 215 00:12:19,415 --> 00:12:21,765 It's media that you make stuff with 216 00:12:21,771 --> 00:12:25,771 The media before digital was all receive only 217 00:12:26,741 --> 00:12:30,741 It was all... they were no Do you still read write-only 218 00:12:30,741 --> 00:12:34,741 read only files. Is that still existing? Oh good 219 00:12:34,741 --> 00:12:38,221 For me, when I understood what digital was was the first time 220 00:12:38,221 --> 00:12:42,741 when I was asked to save a file on the Princeton mainframe computer 221 00:12:42,741 --> 00:12:45,451 And you had to save a file 222 00:12:45,451 --> 00:12:47,291 this is before we used papertape to save your program 223 00:12:47,291 --> 00:12:49,071 when you actually could save to a disc 224 00:12:49,071 --> 00:12:51,641 And it asked me "is this gonna be a read-only file?" 225 00:12:51,641 --> 00:12:55,111 Is this gonna be a restricted file or read-only file or a read/write file? 226 00:12:55,441 --> 00:12:59,241 And all of a sudden I went "Oh my god" 227 00:12:59,389 --> 00:13:03,389 You mean all of this time they could have been saving this stuff as read/write 228 00:13:03,389 --> 00:13:07,389 And I looked back at the media that I had been exposed to 229 00:13:07,478 --> 00:13:10,968 I mean, I was a Brady bunch kid and television was a read-only medium 230 00:13:11,134 --> 00:13:15,314 television and radio, all the broadcast medium, all the book, everything I got 231 00:13:15,398 --> 00:13:19,398 these were read-only media 232 00:13:19,551 --> 00:13:22,661 and now I was stepping into a world where we had read/write media 233 00:13:22,661 --> 00:13:26,661 Where everything that was put out there if it wasn't being made changeable by me 234 00:13:27,533 --> 00:13:31,533 Then it was a conscious choice of the author to restrict that changeability 235 00:13:32,455 --> 00:13:38,085 but the bias was towards me being able to copy that file and change it 236 00:13:38,391 --> 00:13:42,391 Or not even copy it, just change the file that was already there 237 00:13:43,508 --> 00:13:47,508 And that kind of flipped it around that's when I realized 238 00:13:47,639 --> 00:13:53,289 "Oh my gosh. if this really works If digital technology really happens 239 00:13:53,289 --> 00:13:58,778 Then it will be as big a change on human society as text itself 240 00:13:58,996 --> 00:14:02,086 It's gonna be that big a flip And text was a big flip 241 00:14:02,173 --> 00:14:06,173 When we got text when we got the 22 letter alphabet 242 00:14:06,279 --> 00:14:10,279 We got contracts, we got accountability We got the judeo-christian religion 243 00:14:10,529 --> 00:14:12,069 We got linear time 244 00:14:12,202 --> 00:14:16,202 We got cause and effect ultimately 245 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:20,280 Text allowed us to put something down and leave and someone else could read it 246 00:14:20,623 --> 00:14:22,053 it changed... 247 00:14:22,194 --> 00:14:25,424 if you think about the difference between an oral civilization 248 00:14:25,474 --> 00:14:28,304 where other people have to be in the room with you to get something 249 00:14:28,616 --> 00:14:32,616 and a text civilization where you can leave it, go and then someone else finds it 250 00:14:32,707 --> 00:14:34,987 all of a sudden everything is different 251 00:14:35,403 --> 00:14:39,933 This shift that we are undergoing now is as big as that 252 00:14:40,194 --> 00:14:44,394 and what happens is a - certainly the last 600 years 253 00:14:44,407 --> 00:14:48,407 but probably the last 2000 years of emphasis towards 254 00:14:49,249 --> 00:14:53,249 sort of a top-down control of not just civilizations 255 00:14:53,648 --> 00:14:57,648 but organizations, families and pretty much every thing 256 00:14:57,890 --> 00:15:04,310 and religion's changes to a bottom-up, peer-to-peer conncected 257 00:15:07,650 --> 00:15:11,132 not just sensibility but organizational structure