Working as a data journalism professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, Meredith Broussard works to research the role of artificial intelligence in the journalism world. In her piece, “Artificial Unintelligence,” she has the goal of telling the audience that technology isn’t our ‘future.’
As great as it may seem, the talk around tech culture doesn’t align with the possibilities of it. There is indeed a place where technology maxes out and can only go so far, and Broussard suggests that we have reached that limit. Because people have become so reliant on technology for every aspect of life, we have yet to notice that in a lot of ways it makes life harder. Instead of meeting someone organically, we spend hours swiping through dating apps just to talk to a lot of people and only meet a couple. Broussard believes we should start bettering the technology we already have and making more conscious decisions regarding it rather than continuing to make new things.
The author introduces us to the term technochauvinism, which can be defined as “the belief that tech is always the solution.” She discusses how many people think technology is this never-ending advancement and that we will always have more to look forward to, but that we are mistaken. The technological revolution is old news, and we must stop treating it as if it’s our saving grace.
Her ideas relate heavily with the Digital Studies Minor because we have learned about the many downsides of technology. In DS201, I learned about the bias within algorithms such as Google. The text “Algorithms of Oppression” discuss this in regard to doing a Google search of “Black teens” in comparison to “White teens.” The photos that came up with Black teens were mostly mug shots, while the white teens were smiling stock photos. Like Broussard says, technology can only advance so much because at its core it’s just math. Examples like this illustrate that tech culture is not all sunshine and rainbows. The main goals of the minor is to teach and prepare students for instances such as this. We must learn when to recognize the faults of technology and how to handle what within whatever project we are working on.