Posted on by msleeman

Enjoying the film-festival fare. Wondering what it’s like to argue and negotiate with a machine. Can’t do that with a too-long tweet #mscedc

The above Tweet refers to the battle to send a 141-character-long Tweet. I can never win. You just can’t do it. But it never feels like an argument with technology, just a rule I can’t evade. This film felt different from that, for me.

We watched a short clip, and I’ve not seen the film. The trailer looks great:

The particular clip for the film festival is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZKrmyIbNCo&feature=youtu.be&list=PLZli0835JERNv_6mO7U5Wn0d-zeCOIENh

It’s a short clip, and I’ve not seen the film. Taken in itself, it makes me think about what it will be like to argue and negotiate with a machine. Will my grandchildren take that for granted, and will my children look back to now with the same kind of amusement and bemusement I look back on the more innocent days before mobile phones?

Clearly educational practices will change (are changing?) in light of such a prospect. I don’t see it myself as yet, but perhaps that’s simply limited exposure on my part. Or lack of observation.
This film chimed for me with a contents alert I received for the journal Social & Cultural Geography, for a new article published online last week. (David Bissell and Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr. ‘Whither labor geography and the rise of the robots? Social & Cultural Geography, 2017). They outline six ‘disciplinary interventions and opportunities’, namely:
  • Labor, robotics and new everyday routines
  • Labor, robotics and new workplaces
  • Labor, robotics and new forms of workforce surveillance
  • Labor, robotics and new techno-bodily relations
  • Labor, robotics and materializing futures
  • Labor, robotics and new experiments in living
We’re interested in education, not labor geography. But how about substituting ‘Education’ for the work ‘Labor’ in the above list, and seeing how the six categories then sound?
And, if you’re interested in looking further at that article, it’s available to Edinburgh students and staff on ‘My Ed’. Unless, of course, the system argues ‘I can let you…’ and ‘I’m not permitted…’ Perhaps firewalls are, already, the machine enforcing and requiring argument and negotiation…

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