As a child, I grew up hearing the legend of John Henry, a tireless steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the 1800s. Henry, a former slave, paved the way for new railroad lines by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with a 14-pound hammer. He was unmatched in speed and endurance.
One day a salesman comes to camp claiming he has a steam-powered drill that could out-drill any man. A contest ensues: John Henry vs. the Steam-Powered Drill.
After a half hour of drilling, the dust settles. The automatic drill has carved a nine-foot hole into the mountain. John Henry’s hole is fourteen feet deep. The crowd cheers only to watch in horror as Henry totters on his feet then crashes to the ground. A blood vessel has burst in his brain. He’s dead.
The lesson? Be wary of dehumanizing machines that promise advancement but come at a cost. (Plus, humans do better work anyway).
Technological advancement has always been met with a certain amount of apprehension. Ancient Greeks like Socrates thought the invention of writing would destroy our mental capacity for thinking and remembering. In a culture where meticulously trained scribes curated important texts, some Christians “denounced the printing press as the work of the devil”.
More recently, Americans in the 1930s feared “machines taking jobs and killing people”.
Personally, I’m glad we have these natural qualms with technology. Innovation must be paired with thoughtful, ethical and pragmatic decision-making.
At the same time, the man versus machine paradigm is unfairly divisive. Instead we should be looking for ways to effectively partner the best aspects of humanity and our technological achievements.
Technology is most useful when used as a supplement, not a replacement, for man.
Interestingly, Hollywood may be getting on board with this idea. With apologies for invoking the ridiculous, movie critic Forrest Wickham called the recent Dreamworks release Real Steel a celebration of “the supreme might of man and machine working in unison, a combination that ultimately wins out over the soulless tech geekery which aims to outmode workers altogether.”
Now, robot boxing may not be the best example of a meaningful human/machine relationship, but we’ve come a long way since John Henry.
