A Question Concerning Technology

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash Just as Peter was about to drift off, the hiss of the machines in his walls started their nightly concert of industrial cacophony. It always started the same. An invisible worm would burrow its way into his ear and start buzzing around in his brain. He would toss and turn to shake it loose, and, after it was dislodged, it would scurry into the walls to conduct the nightly concerts. All hope of sleeping was lost. He was desperate for sleep. The isolation of working remotely was tearing at his seams of sanity and he had been unable to sleep for the last few days. He said to no one, “I am going to sleep tonight, I am going to sleep tonight, I am going to sleep tonight…” even though there were no dreams to come. He lay awake, starting at the popcorn ceiling he told himself he would scrape off five years ago. His clock was staring at him from the dresser, he could feel it. It put out a menacing red glow that filled the room. It was in league with...

Credit: Alexas_Fotos at  https://pixabay.com/images/id-1448361/  In “Race After Technology”, Dr. Ruha Benjamin ’s central thesis is that tech corporations are not doing enough to address systemic racism and society’s racist tendencies.  In many cases, technology is amplifying racist actions through algorithms, machine learning, and intentional design in some cases. Benjamin (2019) states, “This is why we must separate ‘intentionality’ from its strictly negative connotation in the context of racist practices and examine how aiming to ‘do good’ can very well coexist with forms of malice and neglect .  In fact a do-gooding ethos often serves as a moral cover for harmful decisions” (p. 61). This “do-gooding” ethos has permeated much of ed-tech as pointed out by Audrey Watters in her article summarizing “ The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade .” Companies generally only care about their bottom line and they follow this line of reasoning to its bitterest en...