Jeffrey R. Young

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“Today, Skrbina Is Something Like A Friend To Kaczynski”

May 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."

The future is scary not just for the unbalanced but for the observant as well. But questioning the road ahead and trying to blow it up so that no one can proceed are two very different things. It’s a thorny situation, then, for those who abhor the Unabomber’s violent acts but see sensible assertions in Ted Kaczynski’s anti-tech manifesto. Michigan philosophy professor David F. Skrbina finds himself in that tight spot, having become a confidante of sorts for the imprisoned domestic terrorist. From “The Unabomber’s Pen Pal,” Jeffrey R. Young’s revealing Chronicle of Higher Education piece about the unusual bond:

“But when David F. Skrbina, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Michigan here, read the manifesto in The Washington Post on the day it was published, he saw value in the message. He was particularly impressed by its clarity of argument and its references to major scholars on the philosophy of technology. He saw a thinker who wrongly turned to violence but had an argument worthy of further consideration. That argument certainly wasn’t perfect in Skrbina’s view, and he had some questions. Why not just reform the current system rather than knock it down? What was Kaczynski’s vision of how people should live?

In November 2003, Skrbina mailed a letter to Kaczynski, then as now in a supermax prison in Colorado, asking those and other questions designed ‘to challenge him on his views, to press him.’

So began a correspondence that has spanned more than 150 letters and has led Skrbina to help compile a book of Kaczynski’s writings, called Technological Slavery, released in 2010. The book is a kind of complete works of this violent tech skeptic, including the original manifesto, letters to Skrbina answering the professor’s questions, and other essays written from the Unabomber’s prison cell.

Today, Skrbina is something like a friend to Kaczynski. And he’s more than that. The philosophy lecturer from Dearborn serves as the Unabomber’s intellectual sparring partner, a distributor of his writings to a private e-mail list of contacts, and at times even an advocate for his anti-tech message.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“Companies Will Soon Sell Robots Designed To Baby-Sit Children”

January 17, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"She has spent some 15 years since that day studying this emerging breed of 'sociable robots.'" (Image by jeanbaptisteparis.)

Sherry Turkle fell in love with a robot once. It didn’t work out.

Turkle is the MIT professor whose 1995 book, Life on the Screen, was sanguine about the growing interaction between people and technology. But she had doubts after feeling her emotions stir for a robot named Cog she was working with at the university. The personal connection with the bot gave Turkle pause, making her wary that humans are growing reliant on gadgets not just for utility but also for the type of nourishment provided in the past by people.

While her love for Cog may say more about the academic herself than anyone else, Turkle doesn’t think so. She shared some of her fears of how artificial intelligence may soon replace human emotion with Jeffrey R. Young of the Chronicle. (Thanks A&L Daily.) An excerpt:

“She has spent some 15 years since that day studying this emerging breed of ‘sociable robots’—including toys like Furbies and new robotic pets for the elderly—and what she considers their seductive and potentially dangerous powers. She argues that robotics’ growing trend toward creating machines that act as if they were alive could lead people to place machines in roles she thinks only humans should occupy.

Her prediction: Companies will soon sell robots designed to baby-sit children, replace workers in nursing homes, and serve as companions for people with disabilities. All of which to Turkle is demeaning, ‘transgressive,’ and damaging to our collective sense of humanity. It’s not that she’s against robots as helpers—building cars, vacuuming floors, and helping to bathe the sick are one thing. She’s concerned about robots that want to be buddies, ‘implicitly promising an emotional connection they can never deliver.”

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