The AI cheerleaders seem to be forgetting that when a technology is truly useful, valuable, and enjoyable, people will adopt it of their own free will. No one had to force anyone to buy an iPhone or to install GPS in their cars.
Mari contrasts the organic mass adoption of GPS and iPhones with the failure of AR devices, from Google Glass to Vision Pro.
Mari’s comment feels right, but one should be skeptical of feelings when forming an opinion. Is it actually true that if a technology is truly useful, people will naturally adopt it?
A few counter examples. Nuclear power is the best energy source we’ve implemented so far, yet it’s actively banned in many countries. Vaccines are among the greatest health innovations of the 20th century, yet there are vocal groups of people that reject them. Genetically modified crops produce more food with less land, yet the European Union has various regulations curtailing them.
What nuclear, vaccines, and GMOs have in common is that their opposition is in large part ideological. Clearly, doing more for less is not enough; a new technology also needs to fit into the user’s value system.
Advocates promote adoption by explaining how a new tech aligns with people’s values. At times, the advocate’s work is less about promoting the tech itself and more about changing people’s worldview. See, for example,
’s The Ecomodernist.So, yes, technology needs advocates, especially when a new technology requires a paradigm shift. A good advocate helps bridging the gap between the status quo and the future that new technology enables.
Looking back at Mari’s observation, I guess what resonated was not the implicit critique of cheerleaders the but the proviso “of their own free will.”
Convincing is always better than coercing.
There is a huge difference between advocating from the bottom and mandating from the top.
If a technology is useful, a good advocate will be able to showcase its benefits and plant the seed for people to change their mind about rejecting it. A top-down mandate, no matter how well intentioned, does not explain why the new technology should be used.
Sometimes, we need to be shown how something is better to understand why we should use it.
The problem is not with cheerleaders, but with mandates, bureaucracy, and regulations. Technology needs advocates, not enforcers.
This is an excellent addition to my original comment, and I agree with you completely. There are forces that stand in the way of our adopting beneficial technologies (I am pro–nuclear energy and believe that the film The China Syndrome has a lot to answer for!), as well as forces that impose bad technologies (I’m thinking of how Microsoft PCs rather than Apple computers have been the dominant office computers). Thanks for adding this necessary discussion.