IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 27

spread-out full-of-entropy energy eviscerated of its
transformative power. In the feeding-on-itself removal
of the need for human effort, technology injects the
self-similar equivalent of waste heat into its human
environment, systematically consuming our now and
future transformative powers.
Case in point: Dependency on GPS turn-by-turn
navigation eliminates the cognitive maps in the
human hippocampus that would have been made had
the traveler navigated by deploying more attentiondemanding means like maps, signs, landmarks, the
direction of the sun, compass, sensing when something doesn't look right and/or you've gone much further than you expected, or just getting out of your car
to ask a local. The extremely high order as radically
lowered entropy in the entire GPS satellite-enabled
system is being compensated by the massive uptick in
mental entropy in the millions of drivers who have
become navigationally clueless without GPS to get
them around.
Still, if it were just GPS-driven mental entropy, we
could handle that. The problem is it's not just GPS.
It's increasingly, faster and faster, across the board,
five million and counting apps for everything. "'Society is geared in many ways toward shrinking the hippocampus,' says neuroscientist, Véronique Bohbot.
'In the next twenty years, [she thinks] we're going to
see dementia occurring earlier and earlier'" ([15]; see
also [16]). The soaring power as shriveling entropy at
the cutting-edges of artificial intelligence is being
paid for by the mental dissipation of mega-millions
who ask Amazon's Alexa/Apple's Siri/Google's Duplex...
to do the thinking, attending, answering, ordering,
remembering, deciding, directing, recommending,
reminding, connecting, advising, guiding, alerting,
relieving, reserving, amusing, and solving, while surreptitiously imprinting the expectations and behavior
of children.
(Even though he knows his first-grade level arithmetic, a New Jersey mother was surprised when she caught
her son asking Alexa "what's five minus three." The boy
thanked Alexa after she supplied the answer. "He was
just being lazy. Taking a shortcut," said the mother who
will probably "pull the plug on Alexa to make sure her
son doesn't do it again" [17].)

Conventional Wisdom (Not)
The conventional wisdom, what most people autobelieve, is that technical progress is human progress.
Good technology is good. Faster technology is better.
Easy is good. Easier is better. Convenience is good.
Seamless convenience is better. One need only look
at the ads to see that this is the background assumption. Internet providers like Verizon tout their download
SEPTEMBER 2019

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and upload speeds. Since we hate to wait, faster is
automatically better. Even at the initial Qualcomm
claimed median speed of about 1.4 gigabits a second
(demonstrated max is 4.5) 5G is automatically better
than current 4G because it is 20 times faster. That
means at median speed it would take 17 seconds to
download a typical movie compared to six minutes
with 4G. According to Samsung senior vice president,
Justin Denison, "Rather than remembering to download a season of a favorite TV show before heading to
the airport... you could do it while in line to board a
plane [18]." Car companies boast of the latest tech
being incorporated in their vehicles. Get too close to
the car ahead of you and the car will brake for you.
Drift out of your lane for a second and your car will
alert you or automatically shift you back in. Have trouble parallel parking? Your car will do the parking for
you. Tired of having to pay attention en route? Your
just about self-driving car will do the attending for
you. Don't know how to get from A to B? GPS will turn
by turn get you where you want to go. Need some
entertainment to pass the time on your commute?
There's TV on your smartphone and Candy Crush.
Need to turn on a light. Ask Alexa. Not sure if you
need more milk? Ask Alexa. Don't feel like getting up
off the couch to turn on the upstairs air conditioner.
Ask Alexa. Want the answer to five minus three?
Ask Alexa.
(According to Voicebot.ai editor and publisher, Bret
Kinsella, as of September 2, 2018, Amazon Alexa had
50 000 "skills" worldwide, works with 20 000 devices
and is used by 3500 brands. Her skills are growing at a
rate of 10 000 every 121 days, and there are hundreds
of thousands of Alexa skill developers in 180 countries
with a growth rate in developer support of at least
14 times in about 20 months [19].)

No Sorcerer for Us
The flattering power of advancing technology, doing
more and more for us, makes us feel like the immovable mover gods of old. Seduced by algorithm vacuumed taps and scrolls, we morph into the apprentice
who dons the sorcerer's magic hat and conjures a
broom into relieving him of the chore of transferring
water from one fountain to another. While the broom
happily scoops, marches, and pours, back and forth,
back and forth, the mesmerized apprentice flops on
a chair and nods off. He dreams of conducting the
oceans, storms, and stars until rudely awakened by
falling off his chair into the rising flood. In desperation, he chases and smashes the broom to pieces to
no avail, as each piece self-assembles into a marching army of fetching and pouring brooms? Spinning
round and round on the sorcerer's book of magic,

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019

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