I have a theory that much recent tech development and innovation over the last decade or so has an unspoken overarching agenda. It has been about creating the possibility of a world with less human interaction.
He goes on to list examples, such as shopping on line with no salesperson. He points out that with Uber you do not even have to talk to the driver to say where you are going. Online courses reduce interactions with teachers.
You can quibble with some of the examples, but I think he is on to something.
We have no choice in finance. If we do not automate finance then HFTs will clean us out.
I see the lack of interaction with salespeople and can drivers as a benefit. That’s why I choose those non-interaction options when available.
Yup, that is a feature, not a bug. Many many people prefer to not deal with others for simple things. You’ll also find younger people really not interested in phone calls, voice mails, etc. Various messaging services are almost always preferred.
Revealed preference is always instructive.
I agree with Arnold Layne and Isaac. That which can be automated is sheltered from human error — and small talk.
Many human interactions are annoying, especially for introverts. I remember how happy I was when the pay-at-the-pump option made it possible to fill up without talking to anyone.
There is the other piece here; which is existence above and below the API. People who don’t have computers working for them are increasingly working for computers. If your actions and performance are guided, scripted, and evaluated by computers, then your front-line supervision is a computer. This can make you more efficient to a point… at which point, you are either replaced or effectively an interface to the computer. This feeds that ‘no human interaction’ narrative; even if you think you are interacting with a human.
On the other side, if you determine what the computers do (live above the API), then you are at risk from things that make programming easier or unnecessary. However, you are also at risk from having less real customer or even employee interaction. As for higher management, if you are publicly traded, you work for HFT algorithms…
It has been about creating the possibility of a world with less human interaction.
No the over-reaching change in technology is to decrease employees and make easier/cheaper to sell goods. I remember how unpopular phone systems and voice mail were in the early 1990s. Or how hard it used to be to know exactly how much money your bank account had?
The most expensive resource you can consume is the time of another human being. Why is anyone surprised that the march of progress is eliminating this?
We must distinguish between work and pleasure here. Knowledge workers are in meetings most of the day. Millions per year in salaries are paid so that a group of 5-10 people makes one smart decision each day, as a unit. This is a hugely social exercise. The execution of those decisions is automated, thankfully, but to say these people are not interacting is flat-out wrong. They interact far more than they did when they had 50 forms to fill out each day on a typewriter.
It’s the pleasure side of this that is the problem. If your entire life is consumption without human interaction, and if your idea of relaxing is Facebook, you’re going to enter the working world and be completely irrelevant. I love cutting out the human interaction on any consumption that I want fast and simple. But I also pay top-dollar for meals at nice restaurants, and the human interaction with the staff is a big part of that. I don’t use Facebook. My son plays a team sport (hockey) and that chews up at least half his leisure time every week. The human interaction with teammates and opponents is live and strong in hockey.
This is a non-issue. I’m unmoved. Anyone who reaches adulthood without the ability to interact with other humans will be controlled by those of us that do. /shrug
You’ve missed the point.
Also you might be a jerk.
Facebook would be an example that is designed to increase interaction, albeit online. Byrne makes some critical comments about facebook, but his comments don’t change the fact that facebook’s purpose is to enable another form of human interaction, not to decrease interaction.
The difference is that the human interaction in facebook is not with paid human employees. The purpose of much automation is not to reduce human interaction per se, but to do things more cost effectively. It just so happens that one major cost is human labor. So, technologies that reduce human labor costs will, as a *side effect*, reduce interaction with those costly human laborers. I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize attempts to reduce human labor costs as “an unspoken overarching agenda” to create “a world with less human interaction”.
The central point of Byrn’s article is a logic error. He observes that direct interaction with people is reduced by many services and applications. Obvious. But his article is “(I Wonder if that is the purpose, ahead of any efficiency achieved)”.
His question: Are techies reducing meaningful (*1) human interaction more than they have to, as a goal in itself to drive people apart? So, what is his evidence, his real argument?
He writes: “There are other possible roads we could be going down, and the one we’re on is not inevitable or the only one; it has been (possibly unconsciously) chosen.”
That gets my attention. But, Byrne doesn’t supply any examples of those other roads, the ones which are just as efficient, easy to take, and which preserve meaningful (*1) human interaction. He supplies examples of less interaction, but not those better, more human alternatives. Those roads aren’t obvious, none comes to my mind, and he doesn’t explain. So, there is no support for his wonderment, and the article is clickbait.
*1 Meaningful human interaction. What is he talking about? It is not meaningful to me to talk directly to a clerk, a waiter, or a non-expert salesperson.
A large advantage of user ratings and answered questions is that they are more informative than any store salesperson I have ever met. I don’t miss that pushy, non-informative interaction. Byrne should have a beer with friends if he is missing human contact. Clerks won’t fill the need.
He also ignores text messages and instant-chat with company salespeople. That has been quite helpful to me for resolving some problems, and that interaction benefits from the written format that preserves detailed information.
Modern technology amounts to the following. Before, we used the phone to talk to an employee who had access to the company database and ordering systems. Now, we can access many of those directly. I don’t miss that loss of non-meaningful human interaction.
I think the reduction in interaction is more a side effect than a goal. I do a LOT of online shopping but the attractions are price, information (online reviews) and, especially, efficiency (no calling / driving around / wandering through the aisles). But I like to be around humans. My wife and I certainly haven’t stopped going to restaurants in favor of delivery services.
No. You’ll just buy your human interaction separately–either on the side, or as part of another service.
More diversity (broadly construed) —> less social trust and shared culture/ experiences —> less desire/ willingness to interact with strangers.
Surely not the whole story, but plausible as one of the drivers of this trend.
ps, anecdotally, Uber drivers are far more likely to initiate a conversation than are taxi drivers, who these days seem to always be talking on their cellphone in a foreign language.
He may be on to something, but perhaps he’s being a bit nostalgic. The depersonalization of commerce has been going on for decades.
I remember visiting my grandparents who lived in a small southern town. Everyone knew everyone else by name. Visits to the gas station, grocery, pharmacy, hardware store, etc., involved much more conversation beyond the minimal obligatory “how are you” and “have a nice” day interactions that we’ve been used to for the past several decades.
As we moved in to larger towns and cities that are served by larger retail chains, we simply mimicked the old way of doing business. Technology is finally eliminating that expensive and unneeded human step.
For a while neighborhoods and religious communities continued to serve the needs of social interaction even as towns grew. However, people have been secularizing and moving away from involvement in religious communities. Meanwhile, tight knit neighborhoods have been mostly crushed by HUD, school zoning, and other zoning rules that require us to live in one city and work in other cities with people who live in yet other cities.
I’d suggest that there’s possibly more opportunity for meaningful human interaction socialization than ever, but the difference is that today we don’t get it for free. I think we’re still trying to figure out how that works.
Obviously, the way Facebook and Twitter work now is not the answer. Something more like Meetup.com could be.