0:00:00.379,0:00:06.880 [music] 0:00:06.880,0:00:18.008 So yeah, being one of the first net culture or computers in society writers was strategically a poor move for me 0:00:19.758,0:00:26.837 And I'm living proof, though, you can still survive it, if you can get through it somehow, by answering e-mail more slowly 0:00:27.395,0:00:35.341 It's funny, I wrote some notes because I thought I should be responsible, because you guys are real computer studies 0:00:35.341,0:00:45.856 computer science people, as opposed to just, you know, your average, digitally illiterate audience. 0:00:45.856,0:00:54.480 So I don't really need to make the case - I probably don't - on why learning something about digital technology is a smart thing 0:00:54.480,0:00:58.911 Because you guys have already made that choice. 0:00:58.911,0:01:06.425 But something that occurred to me on the way here, actually, that you might not realize as young people 0:01:06.425,0:01:10.804 if you don't mind being called that 0:01:10.804,0:01:19.458 ...is that it's very hard to get a very accurate sense of the biases of the digital media environment... 0:01:19.458,0:01:23.096 ...when you've been raised inside it. 0:01:23.096,0:01:34.323 In other words, what I want to suggest to you is that those of us who are old enough to have experienced and consciously experienced 0:01:34.323,0:01:45.063 the shift from a pre-digital media environment to a digital media environment actually understand something 0:01:45.063,0:01:55.610 or sense something or experience something about the biases of digital technology that is relatively difficult for those of you who have been raised 0:01:55.610,0:01:58.829 with digital technology to get. 0:01:58.829,0:02:02.188 Right now this is the opposite argument I made through most of my career. 0:02:02.188,0:02:06.443 In 1995, I wrote a book called, Playing the Future, where I argued that, 0:02:06.443,0:02:10.707 "Don't worry, you grown ups, digital technology is coming and you feel overwhelmed. 0:02:10.707,0:02:15.124 But you guys are digital immigrants whereas kids are digital natives. 0:02:15.124,0:02:18.564 So you're going to speak the language like an immigrant, they're going to speak like a native. 0:02:18.564,0:02:26.260 You're always going to feel slightly out of place and unsure, and everytime you have a hypertext link, you're gonna be a disoriented 0:02:26.260,0:02:29.512 because we're not used to that, whereas kids are going to experience that very naturally. 0:02:29.512,0:02:33.156 That what looks disjointed to us, will be a natural terrain for them. 0:02:33.156,0:02:37.056 And they will have command, don't worry, the kids are alright." 0:02:37.056,0:02:42.572 But as I've grown older, and as I've watched where cyberspace has gone, 0:02:42.572,0:02:51.728 and where our culture has gone, or hasn't, I realize that some of my elders were actually more right about this than I was 0:02:51.728,0:02:56.770 And in reading all the - finally catching up with who I was supposed to read, 0:02:56.770,0:03:01.021 when I was younger, you know, McCluen and Ong, and all the great media theorists, you know, 0:03:01.021,0:03:07.429 I would read about the digital environ- or the media environments, and this notion that McCluen had, 0:03:07.429,0:03:12.646 that, you know, if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, right? 0:03:12.646,0:03:17.977 Because the fish is swimming in the water. He's not aware of the water. 0:03:17.977,0:03:22.659 You know, so if you ask someone who is raised in a television environment, "Oh, what about the impact television on you?" 0:03:22.659,0:03:28.638 You can't say it because you're living in it. You're living in that media environment. 0:03:28.638,0:03:35.556 Likewise, those of us living in a digital media environment, it's very difficult for us to parse it's effect 0:03:35.556,0:03:38.675 For us to feel what it is 0:03:38.675,0:03:45.276 For us to understand the difference between what it is to be a human being 0:03:45.276,0:03:50.172 and what it is to be a digital being 0:03:50.172,0:03:58.555 And, being able to parse it, though, being able to begin to look at that 0:03:58.555,0:04:07.510 What Norbert Weinert used to call, "the human use of human beings." He was one of the first people to talk about cybernetics 0:04:07.510,0:04:12.622 I think he invented the word, actually, back when, cybernetics. Even though it got stolen. 0:04:12.622,9:59:59.000 He was really looking at as we develop a computer environment, how will we recognize what is the difference between humans and the machines that we're in? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 How will we understand how to create a human, or a humanity-encouraging, digital media environment? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now the reason why I think this is important is because most of my peers strongly disagree with this sentiment 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Most of my peers, and call them the sort of, the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley, Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all the way to Ray Kurzwhile on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey - there's this sense, this sort of letter ripped sense about technology 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that's uncomfortably consonant with corporate capitalism, but that's another story 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That human beings are merely one stage in information's inevitable evolution towards greater states of complexity, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And they tell this very compelling story about the beginning of time all the way through now. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That matter has been groping toward greater states of complexity, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That we had atoms became molecules, and molecules became, you know, sort of these weird pre-proto-life things which became cells 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And now we have this whole life thing that happened 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And life got very complex through evolution 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we had people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And people built machines, and machines are just sort of in that big, blue, overtake humanity moment, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and when they do, then machines, our computers, our networks will be the real host for the evolution of information 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we human beings can tend to those machines, or, at best, upload our consciousness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then they will continue that journey for us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, and each one has a different metaphor for explaining it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, whether it's Kevin talking about what technology wants, right? What technology wants, like it really wants. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Not, it's not bias towards something, but it wants something, we've made this thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Just as God made people, people made technology, and this child will go on wanting something. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk about the singularity, which I'm sure you've all read or heard about, even on, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can find out about it in Vice Magazine or anything, at this point 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, the idea that technology reaches this point of, not self-consciousness or self-awareness necessarily, but it just surpasses us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It becomes this thing and can keep going. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a... I don't know... for me it's a discomforting view of humanity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it's also, I would argue, an incorrect one, you know? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's one that is - it's one that is a result of living unconsciously in a digital media environment 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's one where you let the digital media environment dictate what you are and how you think about the world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rather than maintaining some sense of humanity in that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alright? So, what's interesting to me as I look at the history of computing, which now we have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and as we look at computers in society, which is a real thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when we taught courses like this, it was futurism. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Computers in Society was a course was a course in, "What's it gonna be like someday when people have e-mail?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, there were times, and I'm sure you were in those conversations 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when people like me used to go to a cocktail party or go to a publisher, or explain to a magazine editor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Someday people are going to have their own computers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They are gonna send messages to eachother using little text editors 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 using, you know, word processors, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they would literally laugh us out of the room. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They did not - they - it seemed so outrageous, that - Or they'd walk around 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, you're not gonna have to implant chips in people, they're gonna walk around with phones that are gonna track them everywhere they go 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they're gonna do this voluntarily 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They're gonna give all their information - it's all just - and no one believed us. But, of course that happened. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But, the thing that's interesting to me about computer history, if we're gonna follow it from the history of humanity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rather than the history of technology, right? Let's not worry about paper tape to punch cards to tape to discs to hard drives to RAM. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Let's not worry about machine evolution. But you look at the difference in people, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we look at history as the human story rather than the story of stuff 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then the interesting thing becomes - the big switch, I think, is the shift from a pre-literate to a literate society, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When we look at the impact of the printing press. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Do we talk about it in terms of, "Oh, look! These rooms filled up with books!" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, that's not the part that's interesting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The part that is interesting is people learned to read 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then when they learned to read, they had personal interpretations of the Bible, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we had a Protestant Reformation, with people rebelling against the Church, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we had the idea of "one man, one vote," because everyone has their own perspective. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It coincided with prospective painting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It coincided with central banking. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And all of these other, very, analagous human inventions that were all about people having individual perspectives, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "One man, one vote," it led to the Enlightenment, and all this other stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Consumerism, Industrial Era and everything else. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When we look at digital technology I think we have to look at it that way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In other words, what is the difference between a pre-literate digital society and a post-literate digital society? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, I'm over arguing for digital literacy. I think digital literacy is inevitable, you know? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I feel like I'm making that - when I, and I, it's my main talk that I do. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's like, you know, "Programmer be programmed!" And I wrote this book, Programmer Be Programmed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We have to learn to program. If you don't learn how to program, you're just swimming blindly in a sea of information. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Kids don't understand the biases of the technologies they use. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, if you ask a kid what Facebook is for, he'll say Facebook is here to help him make friends. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But we all know Facebook is really not here - it's really here to monetize the social graft and all that.