This is a fascinating as it is disturbing episode. so many of the other episodes we watched, the technology was fully formed–for better or worse–we didn’t see the messy and sadistic creation of it.
Here we get to see the messy beginnings of some of the technologies in other episodes we watched, and the sadistic people behind them. Nish poses as a tourist who happens upon the ‘black museum’ and interacts with the proprietor, hearing stories about the different items within the museum, always from the vantage point of the Rolo, the proprietor who didn’t seem to find anything wrong with what he was doing, seeing the technology as a tool only, and his involvement in designing them and their later usage as without issue.
I was very pleased when Nish killed Rolo, especially with the how Rolo took advantage of police violence in getting Nish’s father to sign away his digital self (which–goodness, this is the topic of my research paper and this episode makes me even more fired up about the need to identify and define rights for the digital remains we leave behind) and how we see that systemic racism in broad display today.
It was very interesting that Rolo was showing the prototypes of all of these technologies and that Nish ended up besting him and killing him with lo-fi technologies, including, at the end, when we saw Nish’s mother was sharing her brain space, like the monkey that Nish takes from Rolo’s museum.
I think this is adjacent to our readings really, the readings this week discuss design and how we can best meet the needs of assistive vs automative, and if/when one is preferred. it also talked about the development process, but within the frame of our legal system keeping things humane. I think this episode shows the dangers of when technology is allowed to advance without reflection on the humanity it impacts.
Norman says that he admires the idea of us reviewing each piece of technology prior to selling it and pushing it into the world but dismisses it as unrealistic and that most consequences are unknowable. Do you agree that this approach is correct, given the dismal picture this episode paints?
Media Musings 