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 --> 00:01:19,458 ...is that it's very hard to get a very accurate sense of the biases of the digital media environment... 20 00:01:19,458 --> 00:01:23,096 ...when you've been raised inside it. 21 00:01:23,096 --> 00:01:34,323 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 22 00:01:34,323 --> 00:01:45,063 the shift from a pre-digital media environment to a digital media environment actually understand something 23 00:01:45,063 --> 00:01:55,610 or sense something or experience something about the biases of digital technology that is relatively difficult for those of you who have been raised 24 00:01:55,610 --> 00:01:58,829 with digital technology to get. 25 00:01:58,829 --> 00:02:02,188 Right now this is the opposite argument I made through most of my career. 26 00:02:02,188 --> 00:02:06,443 In 1995, I wrote a book called, Playing the Future, where I argued that, 27 00:02:06,443 --> 00:02:10,707 "Don't worry, you grown ups, digital technology is coming and you feel overwhelmed. 28 00:02:10,707 --> 00:02:15,124 But you guys are digital immigrants whereas kids are digital natives. 29 00:02:15,124 --> 00:02:18,564 So you're going to speak the language like an immigrant, they're going to speak like a native. 30 00:02:18,564 --> 00:02:26,260 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 31 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:29,512 because we're not used to that, whereas kids are going to experience that very naturally. 32 00:02:29,512 --> 00:02:33,156 That what looks disjointed to us, will be a natural terrain for them. 33 00:02:33,156 --> 00:02:37,056 And they will have command, don't worry, the kids are alright." 34 00:02:37,056 --> 00:02:42,572 But as I've grown older, and as I've watched where cyberspace has gone, 35 00:02:42,572 --> 00:02:51,728 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 36 00:02:51,728 --> 00:02:56,770 And in reading all the - finally catching up with who I was supposed to read, 37 00:02:56,770 --> 00:03:01,021 when I was younger, you know, McCluen and Ong, and all the great media theorists, you know, 38 00:03:01,021 --> 00:03:07,429 I would read about the digital environ- or the media environments, and this notion that McCluen had, 39 00:03:07,429 --> 00:03:12,646 that, you know, if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, right? 40 00:03:12,646 --> 00:03:17,977 Because the fish is swimming in the water. He's not aware of the water. 41 00:03:17,977 --> 00:03:22,659 You know, so if you ask someone who is raised in a television environment, "Oh, what about the impact television on you?" 42 00:03:22,659 --> 00:03:28,638 You can't say it because you're living in it. You're living in that media environment. 43 00:03:28,638 --> 00:03:35,556 Likewise, those of us living in a digital media environment, it's very difficult for us to parse it's effect 44 00:03:35,556 --> 00:03:38,675 For us to feel what it is 45 00:03:38,675 --> 00:03:45,276 For us to understand the difference between what it is to be a human being 46 00:03:45,276 --> 00:03:50,172 and what it is to be a digital being 47 00:03:50,172 --> 00:03:58,555 And, being able to parse it, though, being able to begin to look at that 48 00:03:58,555 --> 00:04:07,510 What Norbert Weinert used to call, "the human use of human beings." He was one of the first people to talk about cybernetics 49 00:04:07,510 --> 00:04:12,622 I think he invented the word, actually, back when, cybernetics. Even though it got stolen. 50 00:04:12,622 --> 99:59:59,999 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? 51 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 How will we understand how to create a human, or a humanity-encouraging, digital media environment? 52 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now the reason why I think this is important is because most of my peers strongly disagree with this sentiment 53 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Most of my peers, and call them the sort of, the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley, Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, 54 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 all the way to Ray Kurzwhile on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey - there's this sense, this sort of letter ripped sense about technology 55 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that's uncomfortably consonant with corporate capitalism, but that's another story 56 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That human beings are merely one stage in information's inevitable evolution towards greater states of complexity, right? 57 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And they tell this very compelling story about the beginning of time all the way through now. 58 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That matter has been groping toward greater states of complexity, right? 59 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That we had atoms became molecules, and molecules became, you know, sort of these weird pre-proto-life things which became cells 60 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And now we have this whole life thing that happened 61 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And life got very complex through evolution 62 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And we had people 63 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And people built machines, and machines are just sort of in that big, blue, overtake humanity moment, 64 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and when they do, then machines, our computers, our networks will be the real host for the evolution of information 65 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and we human beings can tend to those machines, or, at best, upload our consciousness 66 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and then they will continue that journey for us 67 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, and each one has a different metaphor for explaining it 68 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, whether it's Kevin talking about what technology wants, right? What technology wants, like it really wants. 69 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Not, it's not bias towards something, but it wants something, we've made this thing. 70 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Just as God made people, people made technology, and this child will go on wanting something. 71 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk about the singularity, which I'm sure you've all read or heard about, even on, you know, 72 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 you can find out about it in Vice Magazine or anything, at this point 73 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, the idea that technology reaches this point of, not self-consciousness or self-awareness necessarily, but it just surpasses us 74 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It becomes this thing and can keep going. 75 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's a... I don't know... for me it's a discomforting view of humanity 76 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but it's also, I would argue, an incorrect one, you know? 77 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's one that is - it's one that is a result of living unconsciously in a digital media environment 78 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's one where you let the digital media environment dictate what you are and how you think about the world 79 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 rather than maintaining some sense of humanity in that. 80 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Alright? So, what's interesting to me as I look at the history of computing, which now we have 81 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and as we look at computers in society, which is a real thing. 82 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when we taught courses like this, it was futurism. 83 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Computers in Society was a course was a course in, "What's it gonna be like someday when people have e-mail?" 84 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I mean, there were times, and I'm sure you were in those conversations 85 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 when people like me used to go to a cocktail party or go to a publisher, or explain to a magazine editor. 86 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Someday people are going to have their own computers 87 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They are gonna send messages to eachother using little text editors 88 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 using, you know, word processors, 89 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and they would literally laugh us out of the room. 90 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They did not - they - it seemed so outrageous, that - Or they'd walk around 91 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 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 92 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and they're gonna do this voluntarily 93 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They're gonna give all their information - it's all just - and no one believed us. But, of course that happened. 94 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But, the thing that's interesting to me about computer history, if we're gonna follow it from the history of humanity 95 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 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. 96 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Let's not worry about machine evolution. But you look at the difference in people, right? 97 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If we look at history as the human story rather than the story of stuff 98 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 then the interesting thing becomes - the big switch, I think, is the shift from a pre-literate to a literate society, right? 99 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When we look at the impact of the printing press. 100 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Do we talk about it in terms of, "Oh, look! These rooms filled up with books!" 101 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 No, that's not the part that's interesting. 102 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The part that is interesting is people learned to read 103 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and then when they learned to read, they had personal interpretations of the Bible, right? 104 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So we had a Protestant Reformation, with people rebelling against the Church, 105 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So we had the idea of "one man, one vote," because everyone has their own perspective. 106 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It coincided with prospective painting. 107 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It coincided with central banking. 108 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And all of these other, very, analagous human inventions that were all about people having individual perspectives, 109 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "One man, one vote," it led to the Enlightenment, and all this other stuff. 110 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Consumerism, Industrial Era and everything else. 111 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When we look at digital technology I think we have to look at it that way. 112 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In other words, what is the difference between a pre-literate digital society and a post-literate digital society? 113 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, I'm over arguing for digital literacy. I think digital literacy is inevitable, you know? 114 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I feel like I'm making that - when I, and I, it's my main talk that I do. 115 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It's like, you know, "Programmer be programmed!" And I wrote this book, Programmer Be Programmed. 116 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We have to learn to program. If you don't learn how to program, you're just swimming blindly in a sea of information. 117 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Kids don't understand the biases of the technologies they use. 118 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, if you ask a kid what Facebook is for, he'll say Facebook is here to help him make friends. 119 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But we all know Facebook is really not here - it's really here to monetize the social graft and all that.