Re: “10.7M grant given to OU research team for video game,” an article published in Wednesday’s edition.
I’m always thrilled to hear when OU is receiving attention and respect, but the concept of the video game itself left me unsettled.
Its goal is to “combat the effects of biases on decision making,” positing we are often inclined to rely on our biases to make quick decisions rather than giving a “thorough examination of the evidence.”
The content and purposes of the game were not mentioned, outside of the fact that it’s sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and will be used for “intelligence analysts,” but I was still a bit alarmed at the implications.
Of course we are working to find ways to minimize complications caused by human error. It can be expensive and time-consuming for a human to make an error. However, we aren’t just talking about sidestepping human error, but the manipulation of thought.
The advent of the machine made physical human labor all but obsolete throughout most of this country. Whether humans have benefited from this transition is irrelevant. This transition was not for our sake but for efficiency.
The same is true for our reliance on super computers for solving, say, complex algorithms. As Jacques Ellul argues in “The Technological Society,” we continue to blindly and blithely weed out the human element from everything we do, and will continue doing so until humans have been fully adapted.
We must be cautious, for if humans unpredictably can eventually be “cured” by a video game — just as our inability to craft a perfect chair quickly and without error was “cured” by machine — we’re one step closer to the most efficient system of all: the one run by fully adapted technicians. Apparently, humans could soon be cured of their own thoughts.
It is important to step away and ask ourselves what is the end goal. What is our progress truly? The means is, obviously, efficiency. But are we reaching toward paradise? This is a fallacy, a dream, an unrealized ideal.
As people, we should hope the society we create has us as the priority. However, we are continually addressing technical problems with technical solutions; rather than adapting our means of productivity to man, we engineer ways to adapt man to increased and accelerated productivity.
If mind-influencing programs become effective and prevalent in the future, the world of technicians looms on the horizon.
Jordan Rogers, industrial engineering graduate instructor
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Nolan_Kraszkiewicz 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Run Sarah Connor! Skynet is Aware! -THX1138