Journal 1

While reading and discussing Dreyfus in class, I couldn't help but get agitated by his overly negative views of technology. He seems to assume that there are little or no positives to modern technologies. Technology can be both good and bad. It just depends on its purpose. Like all things in life, anything done in excess can have negative consequences. Recent technologies fall into this category like any other. Computers have become an essential part of our lives and yes, we do rely on them. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. Without computers and electronics in this day and age, many aspects of life would be more difficult and time consuming. That is why we make technology; to simplify. If we have no desire to create, can we even call ourselves human? The earliest tribes of men used technology to simplify their lives as well. What's the point of trying to hunt a wild animal with your bare hands when you could simply craft a weapon? Dreyfus talks a lot about how we humans are embodied creatures and how our technologies, as advanced as they are, will never be able to mimic us. I completely agree with this statement. Artificial Intelligence is most likely unreachable considering there are so many things about how our own brains work that we don't understand and because we are in many ways shaped by our experiences. So that would mean that Dreyfus is implying that computers are in a sense, inferior to a human's capacity and understanding of knowledge. This makes sense, but unfortunately Dreyfus also seems to imply that modern technologies have some sort of hold over us. Obviously, this is not true. Technology needs a creator and most of the time, an operator as well. We create the technologies because we feel the need to create, not because some external force is influencing us. We use the technologies because we long for a simplistic, convenient, and entertaining life; not because it's controlling us. Just because we rely on technology, it doesn't mean that we are being controlled by it. As we discussed in lecture, technology is an extension of ourselves. It has always been part of our lives and will continue to because without technology, we're nothing more than wildlife.