Whenever any product or service is advertised as “New and Improved,” the truth is almost invariably the exact opposite. There’s even a name for this in English, Hutber’s Law, which states succinctly that improvement equals deterioration. Even the geekiest geek quails at the prospect of a new and improved computer operating system. He knows it will take months to get back to where he was before with the old, unimproved software, at which time another update will already be on the horizon.
The most popular improvements these days involve the replacement of human beings by computers. The humorously named “customer service lines,” where at least you could yell at somebody, have been replaced by incomprehensible and labyrinthine websites where the FAQs never include your question, and the “contact us” feature should be called “contact them,” because they never contact us. Human beings in general are being improved out of existence, or at least out of work. We swipe our own cards and pump our own gas, check out our own groceries using machines with annoyingly unctuous mechanical voices. A few years ago, this was a nightmare future conjured up by science fiction writers: now it’s here. Now comes the next improvement. It seems we are about to be improved right out of our own inadequate minds by artificial intelligence.
This process of backward improvement has been going on for a long time. When my family first installed a telephone at home, we just picked up the receiver and asked for the number. If we didn’t know it, the operator would find it for us. Now a simple phone call involves an expensive and fragile gadget the size of a matchbox with about a hundred tiny buttons and no instruction book. If you ever do get through to anybody, it is like a buzzing, echoing conversation from outer space.
Nothing is immune to Hutber’s Law. Things that were marvelous just because they were old and mysterious are “improved” until they become dull and ordinary: The King James Bible and the Latin Mass are two obvious examples. High definition TV has allowed us to see in excruciating detail just how dreadful most television programs are. Musicians can’t resist improving on transcendent composers like Beethoven by adapting his symphonies for the electronic keyboard or the steel drums. No filmmaker or operatic director can resist re-making and ruining a classic.
The latest technological coup d’etat is AI. I call it a coup d’etat because it is a sudden, irresistible seizure of power by the computer companies against the rest of us. Nobody knows what the consequences will be, apart from a lot more unemployment. But you can’t open a newspaper without reading good news about AI, stories probably written and placed there by AI, telling us how wonderful it will be and how many billions the AI entrepreneurs will make.
The Luddites of the early nineteenth century never got the credit they deserved for resisting technological change. We have swallowed the idiotic trope that newer always equals better, even if it works much worse, is much more expensive, and may have catastrophic consequences. It serves us right.
