APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers

Computer Ethics

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Computer Technology-an Invitation to Neo-Totalitarianism

Krystyna Gorniak-Kocikowska
Southern Connecticut State University

Gorniak@scsu.ctstateu.edu

Contrary to many popular statements, the world-wide spread of computer technology does not necessarily mean more freedom, including freedom of thought, or more diversity. In this paper I will argue that the computer revolution exposes human kind to a potential danger of a new totalitarianism.

The term "totalitarianism" is commonly used in a political context, and as such it has negative connotations due to the past experiences human kind had with this phenomenon.

I will use the word "totalitarianism," or "new totalitarianism" while addressing the cybersociety of the future. However, although still considering it a negative phenomenon, I will not refer primarily to a form of government or to a political system when using the term "totalitarianism." I will use it to address a cultural phenomenon; the kind of culture whose emergence is already quite noticeable; a culture that, in my opinion, might become in the future dominant on the global scale, if the computer revolution continues to unfold the way it has in the past. By "culture," I mean intellectual, material, and artistic phenomena present in and typical for a particular form of civilization. In this case, it is the global civilization shaped by the digital technology.

As the Polish philosopher of culture, Andrzej Kocikowski1, points out, there are presently already hundreds of millions of people all over the world-computer users in business, science, education, and so on-who act according to the same rules, and perform identical functions on a daily basis. Kocikowski claims that these people constitute an overnational (as opposed to "international") community of individuals whose activity, primarily of professional nature, is subordinated to a unified system of some kind of computer technology. A bank clerk working with an IBM PC and using Microsoft Office must perform the same acts that are forced on him/her by the design of the machine and its program, whether the office he/she works in is located in New York, London, Warsaw, Seoul or Sydney, writes Kocikowski. Similarly, a designer working with an IBM PC and the AutoCAD program must perform the same acts forced on him/her by the design of the machine and its program, whether the office he/she works in is located in New York, London, Warsaw, Seoul or Sydney. Hence, according to Kocikowski, the globalization process of computer technologies is a process of creation of a certain totality-a totality that is growing stronger proportionally to the growing number of businesses who depend on computer technology for growth or for plain survival. Kocikowski sees this as the first step towards totalitarianism.

The sameness of actions pointed out by Kocikowski might be easier to accept by the American work force than by laborers in other parts of the word due to "the American lust for standardization"2 which the father of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, criticized on several occasions in his memoirs Ex-Prodigy. According to Wiener, the American predilection for standardization, which he noticed in the early decades of the 20th Century was harmful to truly innovative scientific research, especially in the area of pure science.

Kocikowski draws a further conclusion from the growing globalization of the influence computer technology has on human actions. Namely, he claims that the object-related totality (actions we are forced to perform while using computers) will be reinforced by a matching totality of consciousness. An overnational community of individuals performing the same actions while using the same machines and programs will have to respect the same rules and values, and consequently feel and think the same. Should this happen, humankind would face a danger of totalitarianism on a scale never known before.

Kocikowski could get even more ammunition for his argument from Michael Heim who focuses on logic, namely Boolean/symbolic logic, that is typically used today in most computer searches. Because this logic is closer to mathematics than is the traditional Aristotelian type of logic, it is more abstract (takes us further away from the reality and from the common sense) and more system-oriented than the traditional logic was. "Before Boole, logic was a study of statements about things referred to directly and intuitively at hand. After Boole, logic became a system of pure symbols."3 Using this kind of logic, we do not need to be concerned with a particular reality. In this sense, Boolean logic is a great tool to use in the global cyberculture, because it can be applied universally. At the same time, however, particular real local problems can be only seen and dealt with, if they fit the system. The priority of the system in Boolean logic is what Heim places emphasis on. Heim writes: "The modern logical point of view begins with the system, not with concrete content. It operates in a domain of pure formality and abstract detachment. The modern logical point of view proceeds from an intricate net of abstract relations having no inherent connection to the things we directly perceive and experience."4 This is why a bank clerk or a designer using an IBM PC can act and think the same whether he/she lives in New York, London, Warsaw, Seoul or Sydney, as Kocikowski pointed out. He/she does not need to make a connection between the operations performed on the computer and the reality outside the office.

But Heim goes even further than that. He writes: "Humans have always interrogated the world in a variety of ways, and each way reveals a distinct approach to life...The type of questions we ask, philosophers agree, shapes the possible answers we get...Today we interrogate the world through the computer interface, where many of our questions begin with Boolean terms."5 The system not only makes us act and think the same, it makes us wonder in the same way.

The totalitarian character of the global cybersociety will manifest itself through the penetration and domination of all areas of human activity, and all forms of social organizations through its sheer omnipresence and growing indispensability. Yet the cyberculture can be and will be oblivious to the way people act, think and feel outside of the cybersystem. "In its intrinsic remoteness from direct human experience, Boolean search logic shows another part of the infomania syndrome: a gain in power at the price of our direct involvement with things."6 The cyberculture will have a total dominance over all other forms of culture that might exist parallel to it. This will be different from the past. In the past, there were always at least two, but usually more than two powerful cultures flourishing at the same time, each of them influencing large segments of the global population.

There are countless discussions pertaining to the nature of trends that are presently visible all over the world, namely, the demands of small nations and ethnic groups for political independence, or at least administrative autonomy. This phenomenon is often cited in support of an argument that what is happening presently is not an emergence of a global society, but a growing "tribalism," an atomization of traditional large social groups, like nations. In my view, what is happening now is both. We are in the process of creating a global cybersociety, and at the same time we are in the process of progressing "local self-identification." Both these processes result from the computer revolution. Both gain strength at the cost of these forms of government and these concepts of statehood and nationhood that in the 19th and 20th centuries achieved a world-wide dominance. It is often said that in the computer era there is a growing number of issues and problems that are either too small or too big for a nation to solve. They need to be dealt with either on the global or on the local level. It might happen that in the future there will not be any issues that need to be dealt with on the level of state in its 19th-20th Century form. Very likely, the concepts of "nation" and "state" will need not only to be redefined, but they might become obsolete in their present form. Instead, there will be a global, "overnational" cybersociety, and countless "niches" of local groups formed according to the particular needs and interests of their members. Such "niches" will be also formed in cyberspace by people of like interests who live in different parts of the world. However, since they will have to obey the rules imposed on them by the medium they will use for communication (digital technology), these "cyber-niches" will be part of the global totality of the cyberspace, and not the "real" tribal structures in their traditional form.

The relation between a global cyberculture and local forms of culture could be likened to the relation between the public and private sphere in civil society. The important difference is that the individual will be more severely subordinated to the system in the global cyberculture than in the case of the public sphere of civil society, where-at least in theory-the public sphere is supposed to render services to private citizens.

The totalitarianism of the computer era differs from the old forms of totalitarianism. It is not as obvious. It can be masked. The compulsory element of the digital technology is hidden and usually quite difficult to detect. On the surface, all operates on the premise of personal freedom and fairness, but beneath this surface things can be quite different. For example, Andrzej Kocikowski7, while addressing the issue of software privacy in countries like Poland, made the observation that selling computers with licensed programs like DOS and Windows contributed to a very significant decrease of illegal installations. (One can assume that his observation was true not only for Poland, and not only for the mid-1990s.) This is an interesting situation. On one hand, selling computers as packages with operating systems and selected software prevents illegal operations and protects producers from losing money; on the other hand, however, it restricts the user's free choice and creates a unified, potentially totalitarian system of actions and thoughts. In societies that are not rich, i. e., in the majority of the world's societies today, computer users will be generally satisfied with computers that allow the users to participate in the global computer civilization with the minimum money possible to spend. For some time at least, the majority of the global population will not be able to afford to buy new computer products (hardware as well as software) every few months or even every few years. In societies with limited finances the introduction of new products to markets already dominated by a particular brand might be very difficult, nearly impossible. For instance, the market for Apple computers (not the interest in them) is very limited in countries like Poland. The main reason is the price one would have to pay for the Apple system in a country whose computer market is already adjusted to the IBM system. The country's economy does not allow the existence of more than one system. However, computer owners might be able to pay a moderate fee for up-grades, after buying the first "package." This seems to be already a growing trend in the global business of computer technology and electronic media. Subscription to constantly up-dating and up-grading services rather than individually purchased software seems to be the way of doing business in the near future. This could very likely make the customers loyal to the service provider, cutting off effectively all late-comers, leaving especially very little chance for any significant contribution to the further development of computer technology in countries who were not a part of the "first wave" in this field. These countries, especially if they offer low-paid labor, will have at best some part in the manufacturing of computer products. Innovations and experimentation with new ideas and with new products will be restricted to the wealthy segment of the global population who will also have access to most advanced products. This will keep the digital divide wide open, although on the surface the global cyber-community will seem to be a great equalizer.

An additional factor helping this deception is the growing ease with which some of the digital technology can be efficiently used without being understood. James Moor pointed out that one of the most characteristic features of computer technology that make this technology revolutionary is what he calls the invisibility factor. Moor writes: "Most of the time and under most conditions computer operations are invisible. One may be quite knowledgeable about the inputs and outputs of a computer and only dimly aware of the internal processing."8 Michael Heim, too, pays attention to the significance and deceptiveness of the invisibility of computer operations. According to him, because of this invisibility, we usually remain unaware of the transformation our thoughts, expressed in natural language, undergo when entrusted to a computer. And if we were ever exposed (for example, as college students) to the pain of "translating" arguments from ordinary language into the symbols of formal logic, we only feel a relief that the computer did it for us.9 The problem is that we completely lose control over the process of translation. Whoever had an experience with translating from one natural language into another knows that a perfect translation is practically impossible. (I believe this was the main reason Heidegger opposed the translation of Sein und Zeit, and insisted that his book should be only read in German.) There are always nuances in natural languages that do not have exact equivalents in other languages. A translation from an ordinary language into the symbols of Boolean logic makes this problem even more acute. The thought will definitely gain universality, simplicity, and possibly clarity but it will be removed from the intended meaning the author gave it.

Of course, since the time Moor and even Heim first wrote about the significance of the invisibility of computer operations, the situation evolved still further in the direction they pointed out. The number of computer users grew immensely, but these users needed to know less and less about the internal processing (and they probably care less about them), although digital technology requires more knowledge and sophistication for creating new products than it did ever before.

This situation resembles the historical development in the car industry. Even a few decades ago, drivers were virtually required to possess some basic understanding of the principles on which a car was built. Drivers who did not have that knowledge, were laughed at and looked down upon. (The knowledge of the construction and principles of the functioning of a typical car engine was mandatory for passing the driver's license test when I took this test in Poland in the late sixties, but not when I had to do it again in the United States in the early nineties.) Today, probably everyone knows a frustrated car owner of an older generation who used to pride himself on being able to do many of the repairs on his car, and now cannot do it anymore because you do not repair the cars built in the last decade or so, you just replace the parts that do not function properly. And there is no need to understand how the car is built in order to use it quite safely and efficiently. A similar process can be observed in the case of computers. When it became likely that they could find a wide range of applications, notably after the invention of a personal computer, computers ceased to be the magical wand of the "initiated" specialists. However, the first approach to the training of the potential users who were not professional computer scientists or mathematicians was to give them as much information as possible about the internal processing and about the principles on which this technology is based, including programming; in other words, the attempt was to expand the group of "initiated." This turned out to be a hurdle many people did not want to leap over. So the approach changed, and new versions of popular personal computers were designed to be "user-friendly", and they were advertised as such. The friendlier the better. Various versions of "Computers for Dummies" arrived in the bookstores. Like in the earlier case of cars, here too it was no longer a shame to admit that one does not understand how the machine works. What became important was to make the machine perform what one wanted it to. Today, one can be virtually illiterate, with no education whatsoever, and still be able to use the computer thanks to graphics, arrows, the click of the button, and voice activation. This development in digital technology is definitely an incredible advantage in the case of people with disabilities. But for the majority of the users of this technology it is a double-edged sword because the ease with which one can use a computer means also a lesser intellectual challenge, and a growing distance between the knowledge an average computer user has about computers and the knowledge possessed by those who developed this technology and who do advanced research in the field of digital technology.

From a business point of view this is a welcome development because it increases the number of potential consumers who would be scared off by the complexity of the object. Therefore, it is quite safe to say that the trend to build gadgets as easy to use as possible will continue. The easiness with which one can use an object is promoted by the industries that depend on mass-sales of goods that people do not need for survival, and also in cases like cars in the USA, where the market is already saturated with products.10 The majority of digital gadgets belong to this category. Businesses involved with digital technology, whose numbers grow explosively now will work very aggressively to turn as many people as possible-ideally the entire global population-into users of digital technology, to make them part of the cyberculture. This means as many people acting according to the rules imposed on them by this technology. The overwhelming majority of these people will not understand the basic principles of this technology. Moreover, they might lose the ability to think outside of the system if they will not be exposed to alternative ways of thinking (to alternative philosophies, to alternative logics) which possibly-and hopefully-can be cultivated at least in "tribal niches."

With the emergence of the bi-polar yet tightly intertwined global civilization of cyberculture and "tribal niches," finding a solution that would allow people to benefit from digital technology while maintaining their personal autonomy, and preventing them from turning into the much feared "human robots" becomes one of the most urgent tasks. Of course as always, when the issue is an attempt to either make projections about the future or to change the trajectory of a current development, the results of such an enterprise are uncertain. Nevertheless, the current situation causes concern and the number of efforts to find a way of a "peaceful coexistence" with computer technology grows. One of them is Jon Dorbolo's proposal to take a closer look at the Amish culture and its approach to technology. This proposal seems to have great merit, although, as interesting as it is, it is not (and does not pretend to be) a silver bullet with which one would kill all the ills of cyber-totalitarianism.

Dorbolo's attempt at finding a solution to the growing crisis in the area of the social impact of computer technology has at least two important features. One is his choice to focus attention on the Amish who were already looking seriously at the problem of technology during the time of the industrial revolution and apparently were successful in finding a solution to this problem. The other important point in Dorbolo's proposal is to apply "the Amish sensibility" to software design instead of the use of software. "The Amish approach" used by consumers would probably work in small, rather closed communities, not unlike the Amish communities themselves. In other words, it could work on the "tribal" or local level of the computer era culture. The same approach used by software designers and other creators of digital technology could lessen quite significantly, although not eliminate completely, the negative effects of "digital totalitarianism." One should probably go even further than Dorbolo does, and promote the appropriation of the "Amish approach" by global corporations and by those who look at the business side of computer technology, and who actually decide about the direction in which this technology develops and how it is used. Dorbolo purposefully avoids going that far because he sees how difficult, if not impossible, such an attempt would be. It would basically mean the reversal of a trend that has shown its power already at the time when the Amish communities decided not to jump on the bandwagon, and resisted the temptations of the industrial revolution. It was then, at the dawn of the industrial revolution and at the height of the scientific revolution, that the major rift within western civilization occurred. The question was, to what purpose should the power of the human mind be used; the power which at that time manifested itself so splendidly in scientific discoveries and technological innovations. Was it to serve commercial gains and the increase of political power, or were there other purposes, like traditional ethical values that would be more important? Obviously, the business community opted for the first answer. It even found a way to create arguments justifying the morality of such an approach which probably culminated in Milton Friedman's famous claim that the (only) social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. Given this, it is rather unrealistic to think that the global corporation would be interested in changing their approach to the use of computer technology. Dorbolo realizes it, writing: "The blistering pace, overwhelming complexity, and increasing specialization of contemporary technology is entirely consistent with the core capitalist values of the autonomous market and consumerism. We cannot appropriate the Amish sensibility for our own technopoly."11

Dorbolo took the second route. With regard to the question of the relation between values and computer technology he has arrived at a conclusion not unlike the one John Maynard Smith reached earlier (attributing it to Jaques Monod) with regard to the relation between values and science: "To do science, one must first be committed to some values-not least, to the value of seeking the truth," wrote Smith.12 Similarly, Dorbolo writes that it should be the task of philosophers to identify the desired community values and to convince the computer professionals (he seems not to have such hopes regarding the business community) that these values should be regarded as goals for software design. Dorbolo argues that "if we make a strong case for the desired values, then we will have some influence on future software design, hence our collective technological community."13 It seems that his proposal should be widened by Andrzej Kocikowski's request for a broad and intense discussion on the philosophical foundation of computer ethics between American philosophers and "the rest of the world." Kocikowski claims that such a discussion is necessary because the American philosophers are the ones who are on the largest scale exposed to digital technology and also because the values respected in American society are to a greater degree considered by the creators of digital technology than the values of any other culture. Assuming some good will on both sides, such a discussion could even be productive; hopefully.

Dorbolo points out the importance of community in the Amish value system. "The integrity of the local community is prioritized over individual interests, economic interests, and technological development."14 Obviously, it would be difficult to instill presently in the United States this kind of respect for the community. The American society was taught for a long time to value individualism, individual competition, and-recently-ethical egoism. As Dorbolo writes, the core values the Amish communities live by are "antithetical to mainstream U.S. and much of the high-tech world."15 To change this situation would require both time and sincere effort. For the global cyberculture to identify the desired community values as proposed by Jon Dorbolo would mean the necessity for the inclusion of the values of many communities, hence the need to take Kocikowski's remarks seriously. Otherwise, even if Dorbolo succeeds in his attempts, there would be a preservation of American values only, if any values at all, and the global cyberculture would become a global totalitarianism of American values-whatever they should turn out to be. From the American point of view this prospect might not need to look so bad, but if so, then it would be probably quite necessary to explain why totalitarianism (even if American) is good.

Notes

1. Andrzej Kocikowski. 1999. "Technologia informatyczna a stary problem totalitaryzmu" (Information technology and the old problem of totalitarianism). Nauka, n1, pp 120-126.
2. Norbert Wiener. 1964. Ex-Prodigy. My Childhood and Youth. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, p. 257.
3. Michael Heim. 1993. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 16.
4. Heim, Michael. Op. cit. p. 19.
5. Heim, Michael. Op. cit. p. 15.
6. Heim, Michael. Op. cit. p. 18.
7. Andrzej Kocikowski. 1996. "Geography and computer ethics: An Eastern European perspective." Science and Engineering Ethics, 2(2), p. 207.
8. James Moor. 1985. "What is computer ethics?". Metaphilosophy, October, v16 n4, p. 272.
9. See: Heim, Michael. Op. cit. p. 20-21.
10. A recent commercial for Ritz digital cameras is a good case in point.
11. Jon Dorbolo. 1999. "Social Strategies for Software". APA Newsletters, Spring, v98, n2, p. 74.
12. John Maynard Smith. 1984. "Science and Myth". Natural History, 11/84, p. 24.
13. Dorbolo, Jon. Op. cit. p. 75.
14. Dorbolo, Jon. Op. cit. p. 73.
15. Dorbolo, Jon. Op. cit. p. 74.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2