Laniers Thesis That People Defer to Machines to Make Them Work

Lanier's Thesis That People Defer to Machines to Make Them WorkLanier's thesis that people devalue themselves in order to make machines work is one of the great ironies of modern technology. It is strange to me that we should be so willing to give up our personal liberties and freedoms just so we can use our property to the greatest extent possible.How many times have we had to endure the mind-numbing nature of some of these technological devices? We live in a world where every second of every day, billions of dollars are being spent on research and development of new machines that will make life easier for us and make our lives a little more comfortable and relaxed. Yet we allow ourselves to be drawn into the trap of dependency by these machines which are only useful at certain times and not other times.But what is the real reason why so many people give up their personal freedom and let themselves be controlled by technology? Lanier suggests that people will tend to be programmed t o lose their humanness if they are constantly offered products that are designed by robots. There is something very powerful about this idea and it causes me to wonder about the long term implications.We are also starting to see that the personal interaction that machines cannot provide is also an important part of human personality. We like to do things that make us feel important and special and yet machines are hardly ever good at doing this. And it makes sense to me that people will become less human and more machine like if machines are everywhere and we are constantly being used by machines.In the future I would expect to see lots of robots in offices and in our homes and we would be forced to change from the old mechanical watches and to wear our own devices. This could result in our life style becoming less focused on human relations and more on mechanization. In fact, a surprising amount oftech today has been invented to make things a lot easier for us - why wouldn't we wan t to do the same thing?The problem with Lanier's thesis is that it assumes that we can't change our behavior or our way of thinking unless we are given the right incentive to do so. I don't believe that's true. I certainly don't think that we are all slaves to our own technology, and I don't think we should all allow ourselves to be controlled by it either.But if we let machines run our lives and make us use them to the fullest extent possible, we are destroying our own individuality and also our individuality is our individuality. One of the biggest conflicts I have seen between myself and technology is in the car. I am constantly trying to make my cars as useful as possible in order to make the most of their abilities but I still find myself wanting more.It seems to me that even though technology is great, we are losing our personal freedom by allowing it to control our every move. If we value our liberty as much as Lanier does, we need to look at the ways that we are also giving up our personal freedom in the name of personal freedom.