Live from NZ: Kraftwerk influenced our future/ Kraftwerk is not our future
From 1970's techno to 2023 AI
I’m spending time in New Zealand which has made me question how I’ll write about American democracy while exploring the other side of the world. I may not post as often now, but my brain does find a way to make connections. First of all, it is interesting and sad to see New Zealand transition to a more conservative government, after the Labor Party was defeated in October’s elections. I’m not going to get into details but I will say that chucking a previously-passed smoking ban feels like it’s right in line with a right-wing campaign in the USA that is making nicotine the cool MAGA smoke, as opposed to “losers” who smoke marijuana. I sense an opp here to stir up a new cultural divide. Listen to Jared Yates Sexton’s Muckrake Political Podcast this week for more details. Jared and Nick Hauselman discussed a strange yet compelling segment on this idea. They played a Fox News discussion (Tucker Carlson I believe) that sounded just like a paid product placement, but it was actually not identified as so. But someone was definitely paying them to have this strange and stilted conversation about how awesome tobacco is.
Back to New Zealand, I am trying to do many eclectic things while here and we went to see a Kraftwerk performance. Yes, Kraftwerk, the OG techno group which has been pioneering electronic music since 1970 (!) and still has one founding member performing.
Their retro-futuristic style is definitely a choice, with graphics that resemble the movie “Tron.” Ah, 1982, the good old days. As they played songs about “mensch” and machines, the Autobahn, the Tour de France…..vitamins….Chernobyl, Fukushima and other radioactive meltdowns….culminating with “We are Robots,” I experienced overwhelming sensory overload, even while wearing Zildjian high-fidelity earplugs, which were quite helpful. We sat behind the sound board and could see the decibel output surge past 120 dB.
The experience was interesting rather than enjoyable, but I was glad we went. On the way home though, I realized that I was really bothered by the fact that of all their big-screen imagery, as they performed pieces about the future of humanity, the ONLY imagery I saw that included women was a piece accompanied by video of a highly stylized fashion model shoot from decades ago, maybe the 1950s or 60s. About three minutes of video of women in full skirts twirling around, showing off and curtsying. I was left feeling strongly that when they refer to “mensch” or humanity they are only picturing men. People are men. Men are people. Women are like ornaments, accessories. Maybe women are like candy sprinkles on top of an ice cream sundae, if you bother to think of them at all. Nor did I see any representations of people of color. As I walked out of the concert I thought about how this mattered. I thought of the book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, which I had already recommended to an inventor on this trip. He has an invention that can more easily make customized products, and I think that presents an opportunity to serve humanity by moving beyond a “one-size-fits-some (and if it doesn’t fit you, too bad)” system.
I thought about how much younger the population seems in New Zealand. The future is here if we are willing to see it. You see young people in service jobs such as cashiers, baristas and restaurant servers. But you will also see people born after the year 2000 as construction workers, police officers, lawyers, bankers and paramedical professionals (such as the person who sold me Rx eyeglasses). I can SEE the young population at work here in a way that is less visible to me back in the USA. The American gerontocracy is not serving us well, and I don’t even mean the equally concerning issues* of aged candidates Biden and rapidly-deteriorating Trump. I mean us as a society really investing in the next generation, in terms of education, employment and support. We are BEHIND and the younger generations deserve better. Personal perspective: I studied for my PhD in neuroscience from 1990-1996 and at that time everyone thought there would be massive retirements that would open up tons of positions for Gen X by the year 2000. Psych, that did not happen! Now it’s 30 years later and sooner or later we will have to make this transition. We have delayed that transition for so long that I don’t think it will be at all graceful. I am so concerned there will be a huge cliff that we fall off in 5-10 years, when Boomers finally retire and we have not cared for our young people and developed the leadership/employment pipeline the way we should have. Try telling a Kiwi that as as Americans we still do not have affordable medical insurance/care, paid family leave, and enough support for schools. American Exceptionalism is not all that it is cracked up to be.
Finally, this morning I saw the new Fresh Air podcast episode entitled “Unmasking AI’s Racism and Sexism”. I haven’t even had a chance to listen to it yet but the episode description ties together all the ideas that have been swirling in my head:
Computer scientist and AI expert Joy Buolamwini warns that facial recognition technology is riddled with the biases of its creators. She is the author of Unmasking AI and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League. She coined the term "coded gaze," a cousin to the "white gaze" or "male gaze." She says, "This is ... about who has the power to shape technology and whose preferences and priorities are baked in — as well as also, sometimes, whose prejudices are baked in."
The future is young, multi-gendered and multi-cultural. We need to see beyond our biases and WELCOME the change and innovation that are there for our future if we can just embrace new ideas. We are headed into all-hands-on-deck decades of problem solving. Let’s get started now.
* about “equally concerning”: I think Trump is in much worse shape than Biden. But my main point is it is totally not fair for people to bring up Biden’s age but not Trump’s, and that happens way too much. They are both over age 75, which is quite an advanced age for the demanding job of being President.