maybe what you’re gesturing at, and what I’m not fully absorbing quite yet, is that it’s less up for grabs than we think. There may be deeper trends at work that will shape who wins and loses.
NC: Yeah, I’ll give you a few examples. Companies are going to automate with software any work that would have cost them more to with people, if software can do it just as well. What we’re going to see, in fact, is that that range of jobs is going to grow, because computing continues to get much cheaper, and because the Internet and the connections between databases provide much more raw material for software to work on. That trend is going to continue whether we like it or not, and it could have pretty dramatic effects on employment. Another area is that once information or cultural products that used to take some kind of physical form are turned into pure digits, the marginal cost of producing and distributing them is zero. And assuming that economics continues to work as it used to, the price of those things is going to be pretty much zero. And we’re seeing a lot of upheaval in media because of that simple but pretty radical effect. I don’t think there’s much anybody can do about that. You’re right, there is a lot of uncertainty about what is the end state. But we’re not going to go back to charging people for digits as if they are physical manifestations.
X: Around this question of how much choice we have, the title of the book is to some extent a double entendre—and it’s underscored by the picture on the cover, which is a computer on-off switch. In a way, the cover is subtly saying, “It’s a switch, we can turn it off.” Can we turn it off?
NC: Oh. That’s a good interpretation. My feeling is, it’s a switch that we have turned on and I don’t think we’re going to be able to turn it off. But again, I’m not arguing against free will at the individual level. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a countercultural rebellion against connectivity and the Internet and this high degree of computerization, and some segment of people moving off the grid. I would say that’s almost guaranteed. But that still doesn’t mean the switch is going to be turned off form a social perspective.
X: There is also a shift in tone or perspective within the book itself. The first half is largely about the philosophy and logic behind utilities and how they arise. There is a lot of really fun history in there about electrification and the light bulb and the creation of electrical utilities and how Edison’s idea sprouted and how Insull made it even better. And it’s undeniable that electric utilities helped provide the foundation for the amazing industrial growth seen in the U.S. in the twentieth century, and for the growth of the middle class and all of the things that spread from that. Many more people are enjoying a higher standard of living now and are living longer lives because of electrification and all the associated technologies. That’s a hopeful story. Then in the second half of the book you turn the tables and say, “Okay, well, now that we have this stuff, let’s not pretend that it’s totally rosy. Let’s really look at some of the effects we may be opening ourselves up to because of this.” I wonder where you come down in the end. On the whole , do you see the rise of computing as a utility as the path to an even brighter future, if we do it right?
NC: First of all let me step back and say I struggled with the structure of the book. As I got further and further into the research, I found myself being pulled in two ways. I was very enthusiastic about the story of technological discovery and advance, and the in some ways quite heroic efforts of the people who saw that mechanical power could become this cheap utility, and in a similar way, the people today pushing computing forward. As I say in the book, it’s natural to be very enthusiastic about that, because it’s a human achievement that has great effects on people. It also tends to spur a great deal of general optimism about the future, about progress, and about the technology.
On the other hand, as I thought more and more about the implications of this new computing grid, I became more and more concerned, in a quite despairing way at some points, about what could happen when these forces are unleashed. So the book does make this shift. And the hinge is the story of the effects that electricity had. There were many good effects, but when you compare it to the utopian dreams that were espoused at the very beginning of the electric utility, you see that the effects were really much more complicated, and were both good and bad. I use that as the jumping off point. Okay, we have this great new technological system being built, it’s very exciting, and it’s a great achievement. But the technology then begins to affect economics, society, and culture. While there is much good that comes from this, I lay out several reasons for worry.
Where I come out on it—and this becomes very clear at the end of the book, I think—is that I think the dangers to society and to culture and most importantly to our sense of personal identity are greater than the benefits. And it has to do with taking the ethic of the computer—meaning very fast, very automated, also very structured in some ways—and beginning to apply it beyond just business processes but to the processes by which we communicate with each other, and create culture, and even define ourselves. I think it becomes very dangerous when you start applying the ethic of the algorithm in software and hardware to those human fields. But I think it’s going to happen.
X: I guess I’m more of an optimist by nature than you seem to be. I wonder if we might just spar over that for a little bit. To take one example, it seems like today’s blogging tools—look at WordPress and TypePad and Tumblr—make it so easy to create a compelling publishing operation all on your own. It’s so easy these day to upload text, images, recordings, and package them in a nice way, and even self-finance it by putting Google AdSense ads on your site. None of that was possible just five years ago. To me that’s sort of like handing out canvas and paint to many many more people than could have ever considered being painters before. So in a way, aren’t we creating the space for more Michelangelos?
NC: No, I don’t think so. It’s great that people having new ways to express themselves. But I don’t see the connection between that and instigating great art. In fact, the bad side of this is that it creates a superficial relationship between people and expression of all sorts, whether through words or images or what have you. The net is training us to see all of this stuff as pretty much disposable. That’s not to say it’s all bad. Lots of it is very good. But it seems to me that great art and truly great expression isn’t something that comes quickly, from wanting to get stuff out and upload it to the Internet. It comes through long hard work and contemplation and slow thinking. I don’t see that our new way of gathering information promoting that kind of personal dedication to art or culture building. My guess is that the people who do the great work—the Michelangelos—probably won’t have that much to do with the Internet.
X: To me, communication for its own sake is almost a pure good. How can it not be good, for example, that there are maybe fifty million people or more who have blogs— people who probably would not have had any way to broadcast their thoughts and make them so accessible to so many other people in the past. You could argue that, these people’s thoughts are not all that advanced, or that the Internet is just a better way for more people to express their superficiality. But on the other hand, the Net is an antidote to isolation and to the fact that we are all ultimately trapped by our circumstances. It’s a way for a 15-year-old stuck in Montana to write poetry that could be read by somebody in Serbia. What’s wrong with that?
NC: There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you are getting that person in Montana’s hopes up that sticking something on the Web is going to get them broadly read. And there are a lot of people who—because of some of the overheated rhetoric—actually have that opinion. They start blogging and do some good work and take a lot of time, and they find that nobody comes to their little neck of the woods, and it’s kind of dispiriting. That is also going on.
But that doesn’t contradict your basic point. Sure, it’s fine for people to have more ability to express themselves. I’m all for that. I’m not making an elitist argument that the riff-raff shouldn’t be allowed to participate in culture. But is it better if somebody spends all their time writing blogs, uploading videos, reading other people’s blogs, commenting on blogs, looking at YouTube videos, following Twitter streams, et cetera, and because we only have so much time in our lives, that means they don’t read books anymore or don’t engage with types of expression that really require a big time commitment and a lot of concentration and contemplation—well, I would say we’re losing something. I’m fairly fatalist about this. Society changes and people get their information in different ways over time. But let’s not pretend that
