This was the first time I’d ever seen that Microsoft Productivity of Future vision video, and though I know it wasn’t their intention, it felt incredibly depressing and even somewhat dystopian to me. Something about a world so sanded down in its aesthetics and devoid of any rich sensory experiences – all in the name of efficiency.
It makes me think of the minimalism movement that’s been slowly eating away at our world for the past several decades. Creative shapes and textures and architecture have been replaced by simple, monotone geometric shapes and plain, shiny surfaces. You may have seen these a bunch of times already, but just take a look at what popular businesses like McDonald’s and Hot Topic used to look like a couple of decades ago or so:
And compare that to what they look like now.
It’s not just technology; everything is turning as flat and smooth and understimulating as possible. But why? I mean the answer is the same as it always is: money. It’s easier to sell blank slates, so it’s safer to keep your real estate as generic as you can get away with than to allow room for creativity and differentiation. And speaking of money, I think the reason technological advances are continuing to shift towards the “pictures under glass” format the author was talking about is probably, in part, due to the fact that it just sells better.
Humans are fundamentally lazy creatures, in an adaptive sense. We subconsciously try to spend fewer resources for the same results – and those resources includes mental and physical energy. It’s an evolutionary trait obviously, the more efficient we are the more resources and energy we have to shift focus to other things (the industrial revolution, for example). So it follows that the simplest, most brain-rotting designs that require the least amount of physical and mental effort will sell the best.
We’ve almost given up on the body already. We sit at a desk while working, and sit on a couch while playing, and even sit while transporting ourselves between the two. We’ve had to invent this peculiar concept of artificial “exercise” to keep our bodies from atrophying altogether.
It won’t be long before almost every one of our daily activities is mediated by a “computer” of some sort. If these computers are not part of the physical environment, if they bypass the body, then we’ve just created a future where people can and will spend their lives completely immobile.
This applies to you and me just as much as it does anyone else. We have to make an active effort not to get sucked in by the allure of algorithms that spoon-feed us simple mind-numbing social media content, (which, by the way, is associated with gray matter atrophy*). In a way, this instinct for efficiency is what keeps us advancing as a species. However, if left unchecked, we might end up giving up things we value about ourselves, our creativity and imaginations… or our ability to think critically.
Also, the author accidentally predicted AI slop:
Creating: I have a hard time imagining Monet saying to his canvas, “Give me some water lilies. Make ’em impressionistic.”
*Not to imply a causal relationship, there isn’t enough data to come to any severe conclusions.
