Computers are an inherently oppressive technology (2022)

A few weeks ago I was taking the train but before boarding I noticed two police officers doing their daily patrol and started chatting with them about a crazy lady at the top of the station's stairs. They said they couldn't do anything because it was not their job to take care of the insane to which I couldn't really say anything other than "I guess that sounds about right". The train I was going to take started to depart but one guy managed to stick his arm out to keep one of the doors open. The conductor saw this and refused to re-open the doors even though the guy seemed to be visibly distraught and maybe even in pain. He was trying to help me catch the train but the conductor had other ideas.

It's not just the machines that are ruthless. The operators also take on attributes of the machines they manage and in the process inflict willful cruelty on others through their control of the machinery. The most obvious example of this is, of course, war and the technology associated with its execution. So this essay is right, machines/algorithms are ruthless but it is the people that use them to inflict pain and suffering on others that makes the whole thing into a grand tragedy.

Glad to hear you managed to get out of the incident alive.

Nature is not kind, but neither is it vindictive; the wild world outside humanity will generally treat you with mere indifference. Conversely, there is nothing on earth capable of inflicting more sustained, intentional harm than a group of humans with hearts full of righteous certainty.

While the article acknowledges that another way to look at computers/machines is to call them "incorruptible", it sticks to "ruthless" and "oppression" throughout.

Instead, I'd use a different, neutral term like someone used for nature here: they are indifferent to our emotions.

But that's about right: so are shovels, or meteorites, waterfalls, or a rock falling off a cliff. The main difference is that most of those inert objects act in accordance with natural forces, whereas machines have some unnatural movement (like sideways with train doors).

The other difference is that we have introduced many more of such inert objects "acting" into our environment, but we have been doing that long before we could build sophisticated machines and computers (ceilings did fall, statues and bridges collapsed, animals killed and hurt their stewards...).

As such, I would vehemently disagree: prescribing any moral direction to objects can only confuse and introduce FUD (has been done throughout history). With machines, we actually have an ability to choose the behaviour (adding sensors to train doors is pretty simple).

The fact that we don't is purely our choice, the same way we teach our kids by letting them fall, get a bad grade or experience anything negative — not because we don't love them. Do you feel like delaying a train of 1000 people because you are slightly late is ok? Would you go and thank everyone or apologize to anyone affected on the train — if you were not ruthless, you would, right?

I don't really believe the above, I am simply showing how easy it is to turn this on its head.

People with power and influence are operators of oppression. For eg. logistics. The work of delivery guys gamified and optimized for the minimizing the cost. Its people who are creating these systems and not the computer. Computer can help create cars, vaccines etc. as well.