Botworld
If you look 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, the technology in our homes was the off-cuts of the military or of factories, of industry. Look at computers, which came in equal parts from the need to calculate ballistics in the world wars, and from Silicon Valley, which was at the heart of Cold War investment into space and rocketry. Or mobile phones, which came from battlefield communications. Or even dishwashers and washing machines, which were spin-offs of technology originated in factories.
Now you look, the bleeding edge of technology in the home originates for consumer use. The iPhone is better than anything the military ever made. The Xbox Kinect is cutting edge. In fact, as we’ll see, toys are a great place to look for the latest technology. And even computers, which used to be driven by office use and mainframes, are now led by personal laptop computers, consuming media, and games.
So we’ve flipped from the industrial to the domestic.
Industrial technologies are characterised by qualities like efficiency and speed, which leads to situations where the most “efficient” thing to do is replace humans with computers.
Domestic technologies are characterised by qualities like joy of living, and creativity.
[Image from Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplin.]