What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?
3 times in SF this week, a Cruise AV has driven past my car and triggered my automatic windshield wipers, even though it was totally dry out. (probably the LIDAR interacting with wipers' infrared sensors).
Got me thinking about what unintended consequences can spring up because of new technologies. Anyone have other examples, current or historic?
My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate.
People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assuming current children innately understand the current tech)
Yet while today's kids may know how to stab at a screen to get videos of Peppa pig to play, there are people starting to come through to their mid and late teens who don't know how to use a mouse and keyboard with any level of dexterity, or don't know what a "file" is or what folders/directories are etc because that is all hidden away on an iPad. As a result they struggle to do even the most basic tasks that we all take for granted... and they don't get taught because everyone thinks they already know it having grown up with an iPad in their pram.
I chuckle to my self sometimes when I see a toddler walk up to a TV or video advert and try touching it a few times, then walk away confused because what they thought was a touch screen isn't doing anything when they touch it.
Fascinating.
Internet usage starts with users querying information they want, and services learning/adapting to deliver information in a format/context based on their activity. This has created some stellar search tools, a personalized network of services and communities available to people, and made the internet a paradise for new content from all over the world.
Despite that all the information in the world is available to us, we only seek out what we want to see/hear/read and then get fed new information based on those queries. It doesn't lead to free exchange of ideas and values, it has created polarized societies where we are digitally segregated by our own sense of identity and community.
People talk a lot about the political side of this, the "echo chambers" online. But I think it's worse than that. We see racial segregation on Twitter, feedback loops of content on YouTube that reinforce themselves, news outlets tailoring their content for users that reach them from their own site and optimizing for usage metrics that feed usage metrics... and we all are in love with it.
It reminds me of Farenheit 451 in the sense that this almost-dystopia wasn't created by some fascist dictator or single-party state; we built it ourselves. We wanted it.
That's not to say there isn't beauty on the internet, and we live in an era where more people talk and share and love and fight more than ever with language and ideas. It's just a strange departure from where most futurists thought we were going to be.
Noise.
Auditory:
I can't tell you how accustomed to hearing stuff constantly everyone is. Cars (even just the tires on a busy street), Air Handling, Refrigerators, Beeping timers (ovens/microwaves/calendar reminders).
Visual:
Web notifications, web advertisements, billboards, "news," spam phone calls/texts.
Social:
Many people have an expectation that sending a message entitles them to an immediate response. In the age of quick answers from Google, people often forget about slowing down for the speed of thought.
Mental:
We (humans) can only make so many decisions in a day yet we are overwhelmed with false dichotomies constantly in order to choose one or the other of basically the same thing.
Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time.
If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late.
It’s no big deal and quite a grumpy old man thing to say, and I also don’t know if tech is the root cause, but squeezing travel into unrealistically small and algorithmically created windows of time has killed most people’s sense of punctuality, including mine if I’m not careful.
Motion-sensing automatic doors can be opened by deer, bears (which has led to some excitement in hotels and hospitals), and even birds. I've seen birds that can activate the doors in the hardware store near me, and that know where the birdseed is on the shelves in the garden department.
Depression. People are spending the majority of their lives staring at a screen, and then wondering why they're depressed.
In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection.
But it feels like we're always expected to be on our "grind", always bettering ourselves in an increasingly competitive labor market, so it's harder to go offline and just enjoy life because there's always that lingering sense of guilt that one is being left behind in our collective arms race to...nowhere.
We've learned that better tools doesn't actually create more productivity. Lots of people talk about how they dread email. A singular mega tool like Facebook or Evernote isn't great. Lots of disparate little tools isn't much better.
We've learned that data is unreliable. The highest click through rates come from nudity, or totally gross things like gore and trypophobia triggering holes. The highest CTR on text comes from well, clickbait. At this point everyone realizes this but some still don't notice that data-driven decisions optimizes for weird things.
IOT doesn't scale as well as we thought, because hardware doesn't scale at the rate of web software that we're used to. So hardware companies do more poorly than expected. Replace "hardware" with anything else that's hard to upgrade, and you get software-other hybrids like Uber and WeWork which didn't scale as well as anticipated.
As tech gets more and more advanced and we get higher and higher levels of abstraction, I've noticed more and more programmers just don't understand _what_ their code is doing. There can be a lack of understanding of how calls translate to system calls and machine instruction. The abstraction is good, it allows you to do more and do it quickly. But when you don't understand what the abstraction is, then you are programming by coincidence and errors are more confusing than they should be.
'I'm being tracked' paranoia.
I have to force myself to stop thinking about the ways may daily activities can be tracked. I find myself feeling increasingly paranoid, especially when reminded that my actions are available to faceless people and how they help to train systems that then exploit my 'humanness'. In fact, I imagine they will get so good that they not only exploit me, but use that very humanness to veil the fact they are exploiting me!
Now, back to re-watching Silicon Valley before the season premier.
One of the big things for me is the demise of trustworthiness in just about everything. Extremely cheap phone calls plus Caller ID spoofing has made the telephone almost useless (raise your hand if you only answer callers in your contact list!), email has never been trustworthy, and the internet has made it possible for hoaxes to spread farther and faster than ever.
I have a small device in my pocket that provides access to nearly the sum total of human knowledge.
I use it to get into pointless arguments with people I don't know and look at pictures of cats.
(I wish I could claim that as original but it is something I read on the Internet. Between cats. :-/ )
Something I've noticed a huge amount over the last couple of years in particular - no one has any change for the homeless / those on the streets / those collecting for charity. Contactless has been a 'thing' for a while now, but it really seemed to kick up a gear when phones and watches had wallets and the buses and a decent amount of restaurants went 'card only'.
I'm miserable and all the tech that has "enabled me to do anything" has made everything seem arbitrary. If you can do anything, why do anything?
Optimising for "engagement". I don't think, at least to start with, that Machiavellian intentions were behind it. But it turned out that optimising for the thing that got the most likes, the most retweets, the most emotional reactions, and the most views from people was a shit way of deciding what information should propagate the furthest.
That is a paperclip maximiser. I don't think we, collectively, have fully come to terms with how damaging it is.
The weaknesses of the phone system are being exploited and exposed. Telemarketers have learned they can just put whatever they want on their caller ID with zero verification, including the phone numbers of random local individuals. If the FCC and/or the phone companies don't start forwarding originator information so spammers can effectively be blocked by any user, the phone system will (and deserves to) fail. At least among my friend group, most of us don't have each other's numbers, we communicate on chat apps.
The world's tourist must-see spots are seeing an unmanagable spike in foot traffic.
I've heard this topic come up before. I belive it is interesting and valuable to think about.
I don't have much to contribite of the top of my head, but I did stumble across this blog a while back (it might have actually been from here on HN, don't remember) that explores this very topic.
It's even named after it :) maybe other will enjoy it. I like the author's writing style, usually a pleasure to read.
https://unintendedconsequenc.es
Interest-driven communities online paired with censorship lead people to increasingly radical points of view. Before social media, people were forced to interact and get along with people with varying points of view. Now, we choose to isolate ourselves into groups of like-minded individuals where dissent is silenced, leading people to believe that extremism is normal.
Historically, misinformation spread due to lack of reliable communications technology (news took a while to travel around the world). Now, misplaced trust in media and abuse of technology spread misinformation.
The platform economics of streaming services incentivizes musicians to release a larger quantity of short, catchier singles that work well in playlists, instead of putting out a sonically diverse album.
I'm sitting in front of a device that will let me peruse what is practically the collected sum of all human knowledge, play all the games, watch all the movies, listen to all the music, communicate in realtime in multimedia with anyone, anywhere in the world, almost all for free, and will send a pizza to my house if I'm hungry.
And I'm still bored.
I was just thinking on the tube how Steve Jobs wanted to put a computer on everyone's desks, but he ended up putting one in everyone's hands and now we're all crooked and staring down like Quasimodo.
Semi-related to the Cruise AV, but should we be worried about a sudden increase in LIDAR everywhere from the perspective of protecting eyesight? I understand there are regulations and such to limit the "power" of the light, so just looking for more info.
For me, tech has turned into a crutch when I don't know what to do. I've caught myself in the middle of automatic behavior and it's a bit scary - opening Reddit or HN, closing it because I've already read everything on the front page, then opening it again a few seconds later without even thinking about it.
I wonder what I would be doing without it. Creating art? Going out? I'd have to do something. It's something I want to explore more. Maybe I'll schedule just an hour each day where every device is turned off.
Like social networks breeding political stupidity, mob rule and demagoguery?
Great question. I've been writing about this broad topic for a while. There are 50+ examples here: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/
I hope you enjoy reading them. (One of my favorites was on AVs.)
Computers have made tracking huge quantities of debt feasible which itself is sold as collateral which exists only electronically, allowing private banks to issue usd credit irrespective of the fed.
This has made land prices track productivity, leaving most on the breadline forever.
Younger people are less likely to be able to deal with directories. (er, "folders", and get off my lawn) They are also less clear about what is on the local machine.
They use iOS and Android. They don't use a file manager, and certainly don't use a command line.
Chromebooks are now common in education. Stuff goes on the Google drive.
This is causing trouble when these people end up needing to use traditional desktop software in college or in the workplace. They have trouble with saving files, moving files, and making backups.
USB-C, the intention of one port to rule it all leads to 5 different cables using the same port all supporting different set of spec and functions. Or actually using something similar / variation of USb-C Plug but does not actually confine to any USB spec at all, aka Nintendo Switch.
Leading to Powering and Display in the same port ( aka Thunderbolt ) which is great in theory and idea, in practice there are much higher failure rate of frying the CPU or display controller for all sort of reasons.
USB-C could have worked if we have much more stringent spec, and force only two types of cable, Thin for anything below 25W, and Thick for heavy duty with 100W. Unfortunately USB4 doesn't want to be a better spec.
There are two things I hope Apple will never adopt at its current form, that is AV1 and USB-C. And it looks like Apple is making great decisions on the two so far.
Progress before people.
While the Industrial Revolution is the accepted era as the real beginning of progress before people, I feel the new age of technology will make the Industrial Revolution look like an humanitarian endeavor without a PR team, in comparison. In 2 or 3 decades, we'll look back and at the Industrial Revolution as good old times, even with all its utter failures.
I'm sad to see that people don't see beyond modern PR. Even with the recent Silicon Valley scandals and failures... people say they don't believe in religion... but they traded one religion for another. They all pray and tithe to the silicon valley titans and think that's okay.
DNA tests exposing family secrets that normally people would take to the grave.
The internet has enabled developers to track user behaviour in apps and on websites on an industrial scale. And they've done it so successfully and implemented it so widely that the idea of tracking user behaviour in your app or on your website is now considered an expected and completely normal practice.
Of course, when it's developers on the receiving end of such tracking they will complain loudly (as they did recently about GitLab). A reflection of the sheer hypocrisy that runs right through programming profession.
Spotify’s advertisements in which millennials exclaim amazement at the idea of playing music without an internet connection.
Probably accurate for some tiny portion, which is astounding no matter how small of a group that is.
That software and tools built by idealists with the aim of increasing personal freedom is being used to create the greatest, most comprehensive system of surveillance and control the world has ever seen.
Tech addiction. Information addiction. Addiction to HN, TechCrunch and Elon Musk. I spend more time dreaming about tech than actually doing anything about it..
Lack of patience. We’re living in a instant gratification society now.
- Technical: I hate when i get a call on skype and 2 computers and a phone start ringing in concert. And this is default behavior that cant be turned off. I think a lot of apps do that
- Apps that spam your contacts list and notifications that keep coming even when you closed the app. In the name of dumbproofing everything we ve made it hard to keep secrets secret
- Probably not getting out of the house as much
- An anxiety with people's public image, e.g. not being seen in any picture breaking out of your curated public character. This is something that young people obsess over, while previous generations wouldn't give a toss really.
- An extension of this and porn is public nudity / the end of nudism as culture
How "personalization" and "increasing engagement" has created echo chambers and a horrific level of confirmation bias.
When you're about to get a message on your cellphone and it interferes with nearby speakers and makes weird chirping noises.
I do not know how to start with this. Reading through the comments, however, is enjoyable :)
my short and random list of less important things:
a) annoyingly difficult to leave a window slightly open on an otherwise locked vehicle (live in desert).
b) lack of control over raw data on instrumentation due to gui and locked code. impacts science...wherein people are not field and not CS.
c) wanton disregard for self-image due to perceived shield of teh webs. vast majority of us do not know how exposed we are.
d) total collapse of previously accepted informational authority.
e) we need societal help, but we dont know why or how.
Good comments from personal perspectives.
From a professional one, an absolute uncontrollable addiction to unprecedented amounts of data.
I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, so forgive me if my analogy is a little off, but here it goes... It's like the Force. Everyone wants it but few can handle it. Of the few who can, the ones who use it for good are constantly fighting a battle against those who wield it recklessly or with malice.
And with modern infrastructure, that data can captured and leveraged in astonishingly quick ways that make it very hard to stop.
we're all going to have arthritis in our thumbs from typing on our phones so much. I got a hand MRI for a separate injury, but my doctor noticed I had early signs of arthritis at a relatively young age. it's a lot more common because of heavy smart phone usage.
Maybe this is me getting old(er), but personal unintended consequences is how little I care about new tech, especially the focus of mobile phones and how expensive they have gotten. Not only have I reached a point where I am actively reducing the amount of devices I have and different types of software. This also extends to turning off any kind of notification etc, very few things are important enough to disrupt my chain of thought at all, none when on a regular basis.
One of my other gripes is the dumbing down of software, where everything is so simplified that doing your own backups, or finding any kind of backups of a kind is just incredible inconvenient or impossible.
I grew up in the 90s (born mid 80s) and I long for that era of computing in terms of my relationship to it. While I absolutely know that I am looking at this with heavy, rose-tinted goggles, but life without the Internet was better. This is in the context of distraction, because the Internet has become the distraction-enabler through mobile phones, iPads etc. While it has enabled communication, it also enabled distraction. I'd wager that the personal productivity and/or happiness is severely reduced for a large amount of people and companies, due to "abusing the web".
Oh, I also never use my smartphone. I can talk with my friends for hours on it, but other than a few things here and there, I barely use it. But what I hate is the expectation that one should be available and accessible basically all the time. Friends and family have gotten used to my quirks, but I still feel the pressure of being available when the phone is close by.
People talking loudly to themselves on the street (if they have airpods in).
Unnecessary consequence: assuming what is around you as the norm. Like communication across the globe and having a social media account is as common as toasting bread (see the irony in the last part?).
I just saw a video of a woman getting hit by a bus because she had her headphones in and looking at her cell phone crossing a crosswalk.
Not really her fault, but I guess I would have heard a bus coming.
That orchestration technologies like k8s and OpenShift generally make services less stable and less performant. IMO not an unexpected consequence, but clearly an unintended one.
I guess this would not happen if people were to use the above technologies with stateless services only, but they don't because the majority of articles, blogs and documentation on the subject leads people to believe that using network based storage for your io intensive state full services is good practice.
I'm out of the dating game (thank god) but I noticed dating apps completely ruined dating in all other areas as well.
This is something both my male and female associates complain about.
I've used Google maps directions assistance for many trips but still enjoy driving somewhere unfamiliar the old fashioned way: using written directions, paying attention, and maintaining a sense of location. I don't remember the feelings associated with driving the old fashioned way. Clearly, driving assistance technology has made driving much less stressful, but also prevents people from acquiring important navigation skills.
The rise of crypto-currency had the unintended result of getting people into investing, rather than starting a new currency people would use...
More and more video games require an internet connection and server to be playable. They can't be archived or revisited in the same way that an old Nintendo ROM can be. When World of Warcraft rereleased their "classic" version, there was a lot of dialogue of what that classic experience was and what warranted revising.
How could a computer game historian play 2009's Farmville in 2109?
The Gutenberg Press led to the Protestant Reformation.
Not so much new tech, but I was out on the deck really late in the summer and heard a horrible sound like a dying alien. After sorting through the noise, I finally recognized it as a mocking bird doing a very bad imitation of a car alarm. I've heard good ones but this was just sounded sickly--perhaps it was blending different types of alarms together.
Upgrading to ios 13 and realizing they broke find my iPhone. It used to be I would log in to find my wife’s phone the half dozen times a day she’s forget where she put it. Now... I have to go to iCloud.com in a browser... another irony- her credentials are stored in my passwords whereas the old find my iPhone had no option but to forget credentials...
Commoditization of human behavior
Scooters, scooters everywhere :-)
Here's a positive one: smart phones with maps have helped bring about the EV revolution.
I got an EV recently and quickly noted how annoying to near impossible finding chargers would be without an app.
It seems most of the comments are about negative unintended consequences; but most positive consequences also might have been unintended.
A resurgence of obsolete analog things
Productivity tools.
You end up being more productive and finishing things faster; but most of the time, that ends up in no decrease in the time you spend on working stuff since the system quickly adapts to your new productivity level and you still spend all your time working.
Unless you are the one taking the majority of the surplus of your actions, which is rarely the case in a capitalist society, it is a dreadful feeling.
The end feeling is alienation followed by depression.
Arbitrary censorship is OK now. Services do it. Schools do it. Governments do it.
oh and people can now work remotely. this was an early promise of the internet that people had kind of given up on , but it came back serendipitously with improved tech.
Facebook has amplified negativity. I never thought it would be used to develop psychological profiles and the "Russians to elect Trump".
Waze and GPS has ruined local neighborhoods and the sense of direction.
New kinds of addictions due to instant gratification.
Lack of social skills and engagement.
The concept of “literacy” is relative to begin with.
Everyone is oblivious to their surroundings. Whether it’s because they’re looking down at their smartphone or listening to a podcast or music on their AirPods, people aren’t paying attention to what’s happening around them, and they are walking out into streets without looking for cars, assuming no one is coming. I bike most places, and the number of pedestrians (and other bicyclists!) who can’t hear my bike bell is astounding.