One of the arguments that Kevin Kelly makes about the growth of technology is that its growth is killing nature. He is right to claim that the industrial processes of first-world countries are more efficient in the destruction of the environment. However, I have to disagree that technological growth can only result in such devastation. Kelly points to the fact that “lumber is taken by cutting down forests” (194). These lumber companies do have the ability to clear entire forests, but large corporations also have the capacity to give back to the environment. First-world countries have the wealth and the technology to replace a portion of the forests that are cut down. Some third-world countries that only practice slash and burn agriculture effectively put down their forests permanently. This argument that first-world countries relying on technology can have the same ecological footprint as less technologically evolved countries reaches over to the other examples outlined by Kelly such as “lakes poisoned, rivers dammed, jungles flattened, air dirtied…” (195). The truth is that even those countries without technology can still have disastrous effects. Disease and starvation are more prevalent in those poorer countries for a reason. Their pollution problems are born from the fact that they are incapable of giving back to the environment due to technological constraints (knowledge/machinery that can help with farming or safer production practices) while the first-world problems come from the excess in which they use resources.
Though I disagree about Kelly’s assumptions on environmentalism and its relation to technology, I do agree with his stance on humanity’s relation to technology. Kelly believe that we are at a “second tipping point” where “the technium’s ability to alter us exceeds our ability to alter the technium” (197). He adds that the growth of technology will lead to “competition between Homo sapiens and machine” (197). I find this to be true because of how ignorant today’s youth is towards the past. Many kids and preteens these days will have full knowledge of social media websites, the newest smart phones and the most powerful game consoles. However, they lack the practical knowledge of how to survive without technology. With Google maps we have lost our ability to navigate on our own. With search engines we have lost our ability to conduct traditional research. Even something as simple as a laundry machine has left us without knowledge to clean our clothes ourselves. As we become more familiar with new technologies, we become more ignorant of the simpler devices we created in the past. Kelly is right in the fact that modern advancements often dictate what we learn and how we operate in life.
Discussion question: Given that modern machinery and computers can outperform people in many ways, does there still exist one human trait that machines cannot replicate?
Responding to your question about the irreplaceability of humanity, I think that the human trait that is irreplaceability is feeling. The ability to feel, empathize, and sympathize is unique to humans and although machines are currently being made to recognize human expression, they aren’t truly feeling, but rather going through algorithms that spit out a feeling and then the machine responds. Without human users, machines cannot use their data or be productive. Machines and humans are symbiotic-compatible in most aspects, but one without the other leaves society at a standstill. Humans without machines leaves us confused and thrown back a 1000 years into the past and machines without humans leaves a bunch of geological buildup of ore and metal. The complex relationship between humans and machines is what makes the culture of technology so prevalent. However, humans retain the unique ability to be conscious and feel, while machines are merely synthesizers.
To answer your question, the trait that machines and computers cannot obtain is the same trait that makes us human; that trait is consciousness. Before going on to more theoretical points, I will lead off with a factual point for my argument. We as humans still do not fully understand the ramifications of the human consciousness. With that said, since we as humans still don’t have a complete and thorough understanding of the concept of consciousness, how would we introduce it into a machine? At this point in time, we just don’t have the knowledge or ability to do accomplish this feat because the human conscious is too complex. Human can only apply what they know. On a more theoretical point, although Kelly argues that we have co-evolved with technology, at the end of the day the evolution of biological features and traits, such as the brain, completely out weight that of technology due to our ability to interpret, analyze, and interact with the environment around us and reality in the broader sense. It comes down to this, even if we were able to create a synthetic consciousness in a machine, it would still not be able to feel authentically, the machine could only feel what we as humans have programmed it to feel. Technology at the end of the day is only as intelligent as the humans that create it.