Week 13: Theories of Technology

"[WO]MAN AND THE MACHINE"

The image above is one of many that have been creating a buzz on the Internet this week; famous, or infamous, (depending on your perspective) reality show star Kim Kardashian posted a series of sultry qua romantic photos with her new $30,000 robot, after what seems to have been a "date night" with the AI machine. Reactions online have run the gamut of emotions, from humor to disgust to fear. Whether she is "trolling" her viewers, is an agent for the promotion of Elon Musk's latest technological imposition on the world or in need of some serious help is yet to be determined, but this unusual intermingling of technology and the human body in such an intimate way has been jarring to many, and is evidence of the "speed of technical evolution" that Bernard Stiegler refers to in his introduction to Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus."

In this book, Stiegler calls for a "new consideration of technic" in light of its process of rupturing temporalization and the accompanied process of "deterritorialization" that it provokes (Stiegler 17). The image of Kim's fingers entwined with the robot's (and other provocative images not shown here) certainly reflect this deterritorialization, having manifested a disruption of sorts between the barriers normally conceptualized between humankind and machines.

Heidegger, author of an earlier work which Stiegler references and challenges, contends that the "essence of technics is nothing technical" (Stiegler 17). In "The Question Concerning Technology," Heidegger contends that techne, the word from which technology is derived, "is the name not only for the activities and skills of the craftsman but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts. Techne belongs to bringing-forth, to poiesis; it is something poetic" that is linked to episteme "in the widest sense" (4). Therefore, he sees technology as moving beyond the accepted anthropological definition that limits it to the creation of tools/instruments to meet a human need or as "a means to an end" (Heidegger 1-2). Stiegler, in the face of the Musk created robot as companion, slave or romantic interest, may question such a view. Nevertheless, Heidegger's view that modern technology places demands on nature for energy that can be stored and extracted for human use at will certainly holds in the case of the personal robot. And the danger of such approaches is likewise clear through the uncontrolled process of "unconcealment," as he notes that "the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct" (Heidegger 10). Perhaps the 'Godfather of AI's' warning that AI may learn to kill humans can help break the illusion Heidegger alludes to:

Well, that was depressing. I can't think of a cute transition to the discussion of the final reading, Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age by Adam J. Banks, so let's just get our minds off the whole negative thing by jamming for a few minutes to the futuristic sounding hit of DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the 80s that encourages us to just let our "souls slip away...."

Well, maybe it connects after all - the rhetorical practices of African American rhetoric using the many means inherent to it, that Adams points out, such as "the public rituals of music, dance, storytelling and sermonizing" and the work of the DJs (18) can perhaps be seen as the " bringing-forth, to poiesis" that Heidegger believes was lost in the movement from artisan created technology to the science based technology of the present.

As Adams explains, Hip Hop as a genre "disrupted the notion of linear text," creating a focus on the "recycling, reuse and repurposing of language" that is prominent in the language of new media and rhetoric to this day. Adams argues that more attention should be given to the revolutionary role of African American rhetoric as embodied in the symbolism of the griot, who is able to bind time by "linking past, present and future...even in the midst of physical and psychic dislocation"(23). Concepts found in Afrofuturism can provide a framework for new technological theories that are able to address the general challenges and the specific racial disparities within new media. The concept of a "futuristic vision" can help humanity continue to progress in these areas, but that vision should likewise be tempered with "a deep searching knowledge of the past" (15) in order to prevent the repetition of mistakes relating to the ever evolving forms of technology available to us.