released 7/18/2025

How are we to think well about automation? As software technologies grow more ubiquitous and more sophisticated, how often do we imagine ourselves in the image of our devices rather than vice versa? Do we assume that our brains work computationally and that, given the right equations, we can transfer our thought-processes and our skills to machines without suffering any losses? Profit-making companies have long preferred machines to humans, replacing skilled laborers with machine operators and, more recently, computer operators, but to what extent do we now individually forgo our own human skills and capacities in favor of an easy, “frictionless” experience? Technology critic Nicholas Carr encourages us to consider how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world and whether — like a good tool — they present a more inviting world or close us off from that world. Carr is the author of The Glass Cage: Automation and Us (W. W. Norton, 2014). A portion of this interview was first published on Volume 129 of the Journal.

66 minutes

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