American futurist Kevin Kelly (Kevin Kelly) 1 provides a scale of graded criteria, a kind of descriptive evaluation, based on specific criteria and quality ratings, that is, a useful “rubric” for predicting the technologies that will thrive in the future. It is a theory of technological evolution inspired by biological evolution, but based on intelligent design. As he puts it, these principles allow us to determine “what technology wants.” But don’t let his personification of technology fool you. It describes the natural trajectory of the invention and its acceptance. Finally, technology “wants” what we want!
Kelly calls the whole of this system “Technium”. This includes every technology we create and use, from styluses, statues, and saw blades to laptops, robots, and…. grenades. It is a unique, interdependent ecosystem, born of human minds and shaped by human hands, in our quest for survival. The avant-garde thinker presents this cultural production as another animal kingdom, like microbes or plants. Techneion develops and adapts to symbiosis with Homo sapiens. Our tools have a life of their own, which evolves according to three principles [What Technology Wants, New York, Penguin Publishers, 2010, pages 181-183]:
- “Structural” – What inventions are still possible given the laws of nature? (For example, the car being improved further can actually move forward.)
- “History” – What form will a technology take, given pre-existing designs and existing infrastructure? (The car burns mostly gasoline and is narrower than the road.)
- “Purpose” – What technology will be adopted at a sufficient scale, given what human beings want? (People will buy the car based on its “style” and performance.)
Our highways were designed with technology in mind, while short-lived oranges rot and end up in the landfill. This process of creation and elimination is true throughout the art. A single brain dreams up every invention. This is of course limited by the structure and function of nature. It is shaped by historical precedent. And it will flourish or fail according to our collective intentions.
Here, however, we will add that all these possessive “ours” lack a critical identifying distinction. Some technologies are readily adopted by consumers. Many others are imposed by the authorities. Take for example the repulsive and abominable Nudie Scanners of the American Transport Security Administration – TSA to check aircraft passengers for possible weapons, or the various annoying customer service chatbots. The same goes for the Chinese Communist prefab … “smart cities” guided by all-out, party-based mass surveillance. Obviously, in such cases, the technology “wants” what the Croesians, the ruling magnates and the overlords want, whether we like it or not.
The smartphone (“smart phone”, is a mobile phone based on a mobile phone operating system, with more advanced computing capability and connectivity than a conventional mobile phone) is an excellent illustration of Kelly’s descriptive assessment. Structurally, it derives from laws of physics that enable and limit wireless signals, from computer processors, application software, graphics displays, and touch screens. Therefore, smartphones use silicon microcircuits to process the electrons, converting them into the ones and zeros of the binary system – as opposed to historically impossible or failed designs such as using mud and stone huts to tame the lightning outside of them. “prison” accommodations-. The logic of nature provides but also limits the possibilities of human creations.
Historically, most of these phone components were created by the military before being repurposed for civilian use. Expatriate political scientist and technology scholar Dr. James Poulos2 calls these components “the last word of security in the smartphone delivery pipeline” (where a “pipeline” is a set of automated processes that help deliver high-performance applications quality faster and more reliably. It can include steps such as code analysis, testing, “building”, developing and “release”-launching applications) due to their multiple tested excellent quality due to their purely military origin.
The first computers were developed during World War II. Cellular communication and GPS have been used by the US military and navy since the 1970s. The microprocessor, the small hard drive, the lithium-ion battery, the liquid crystal display, the touch screen, and the Internet itself all come from the US Department of Defense. Most of them came from the infamous “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency” – DARPA (“Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency”).
Over time, these military components were joined by the corporate world. The first fully integrated smartphone was the infamous “Simon”, released by IBM in 1994. It was a heavy, ugly, and minimally functional offspring… of a box. No one caught Simon. Technology didn’t “want” him. Not yet. After decades the best military components were reincorporated by Apple and developed as “iPhone” in 2007 (the prefix i as the initial letter of the words internet, individual, instruct, inform, inspire). Three years later Apple bought the famous chatbot “Siri”, (also developed with DARPA funding).
iPhone customers appeared hooked on their new wonder product. Since then, they continue to line up in front of electronics stores to buy …. its latest version in time. Akin to fancy supercars and first-class tickets, the iPhone is a coveted status symbol. For thrifty and thrifty consumers, there is also a variety of cheap imitations to choose from. The smartphone quickly changed everything. Today, it is an essential tool to thrive in a digital ecosystem. And everything about it or surrounding it was intentional. The companies ostentatiously held the juicy absolutely desirable apple, we obsessively sought it and the authorities “loved” it! Here, technology really “wanted” the smartphone!
Now, almost everyone is tagged and tracked by the smart device in their pocket. Each person is a protagonist of state surveillance, playing the lead role in a personal bad science fiction movie. The smartphone user is also a mini-wizard, empowered by technology to “do whatever he wants” (according to the “thelemic” law of the Great Wizard Aleister Crowley). Even the average moron now possesses the magical powers of telepathy (telephone calls), foresight (spying), precognition (weather research apps), telekinesis (Amazon-style product deliveries), sexual magic (internet pornography), higher communication with spirits (with ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence application that enables dialogue and responses, – November 2022 – optimized with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques) and with necromancy (chatbot – a conversation simulator trained on the personal data of dead persons).
Techneion has merged with our mind, creating a collective “hive mind”. This was foreseen long ago. In 1926, Serbian Nikola Tesla, the eccentric inventor and womanizing prophet declared to Collier Magazine regarding our future as captives of the screen:
“When wireless communication is fully implemented, the whole earth will turn into a giant brain. … We will be able to communicate with each other instantly, regardless of distance. Not only that, but through television and the telephone we shall see and hear each other as completely as if we were face to face, despite the intervening distance of thousands of miles. A man will be able to carry a communication device in his waistcoat pocket.”
Skeptics in the interwar period thought that Tesla was simply exaggerating about the fantastic gadgets. It was their fault! However, Tesla didn’t say a word about disenchanted and “addicted” smartphone users, sitting like … zombies even at the dinner table. Nor did he mention the various idiots who ….. blast music on forest hiking trails or loudly watch various YouTube videos in the university library. Also if Tesla imagined that smartphones would equip the world’s most powerful surveillance regimes, he never revealed it. After all, even the most accurate, the most inspired futurologist can only see in front of his nose!
In the same interview, Tesla predicted that “the equality of the sexes will cease with a new sexual order, with the female as superior.” He explained: “The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their gradual usurpation of leadership, will blunt and ultimately dissolve feminine sensibilities, stifle the maternal instinct, so that marriage and motherhood will become abominable, and the human civilization will approach nearer and nearer the perfect civilization of the ….bee.”
Unfortunately, he was not wrong about our overpopulated “hives” – cities. But wrong in that today every queen bee is just a male billionaire
During his lifetime, the great Tesla produced all kinds of great things but also…. foreign inventions. He drew up plans for a wireless power source, a steam-powered robot, an earthquake device, and an infrared weapon. Various conspiracy theorists are certain that these technologies were functional. When Tesla died his plans were confiscated from his laboratory by “secret inspectors”. The ruling elites are revealing them to us bit by bit.
“It’s decades ahead of what we see today,” various “extremists” and “fringers” insist. Yes, for some cases, it is. For others, not so much. Governments and corporations have good reasons to hide their power. They are also prone to overstating and exaggerating their progress to project their power. We are left to speculate what really goes on behind closed doors.
Aggressive conspiracy theories remind UFO hunters who sometimes believe that computer parts were salvaged from a crashed flying saucer! The scenario: Some zealous conspiracy theorist imagines a… green-skinned spaceship captain looking down at his analog alien smartphone and crashing to earth. Investigating the wreckage of the spaceship, an army technician finds the phone in the small palm of the alien corpse. Scientists are deconstructing and reconstructing it on a secret basis, ultimately offering humanity…. iPhones and the fatal cycle begins again!
If modern technology has just fallen from the stars, let alone fully formed, this means that our “secret controllers” must have employed millions of writers, artists and actors to construct the detailed record of technological development. It seems that debunking UFOs would be cheaper and easier than making up this long, piecemeal story.
Honestly, it would be nice if we could blame Tesla or the …. Aliens for this information mess. The reality is that our technology may come from an unknown source – but it emerges from the human mind!
FOOTNOTES
- Kevin Kelly (born in 1952) is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious Wired magazine (a prestigious American monthly magazine, published in print and online, focusing on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy and politics). He is a former editor of the magazine “Whole Earth Review” (quarterly 1985-2003, which had a special role in the promotion of alternative technology or “appropriate” – autonomous and environmentally friendly technology). He has also been a writer, art photographer, environmentalist and student of Asian and digital culture.
