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IBM Advertising

Tech Critics Create Powerful Video Responding To IBM's 'Dear Tech' Ad (slate.com) 141

"Technology hasn't fallen short of its promise. Tech companies have," argues Evan Selinger, a philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, reporting on a new "collaborative video response to IBM's Dear Tech Ad" (which was aired during last week's telecast of the Oscar's). Earlier Selinger wrote: [IBM's] infantilizing ad depicts technology as if it were an autonomous person, a benevolent Santa Claus figure that can give great products to all the good little girls and boys if they ask politely.... It all sounds nice. But the message obscures the fact that technology hasn't fallen short of its promise. It's recalcitrant tech companies that need to change. That includes IBM....

IBM isn't alone in this sunny disingenuousness. Its competitors also give lip service to listening to our hopes and dreams while shutting down criticism that's voiced to make things better... A commercial like this one can't avoid being an empty marketing pitch when it represents a contested concept as a clear and unambiguous wish that technology can magically grant just as easily as Santa can satisfy a request for a new smartphone.

So a team of tech critics including Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab "created an alternative to IBM's ad. It's a provocative, line-by-line, video counterstatement" -- not "Dear Tech," but "Dear Tech Company."

Here are some of its more provocative quotes:

"We have a pretty complicated relationship."

"Your track record is mixed."

"Really mixed."

"And you have the potential to do immense harm."

"Are you only benefiting a few?"

"While many more suffer?"

The new counter-ad urges its viewers to demand more accountability from tech companies. (Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of civic media at MIT, even argues for companies "that treat people as more than data subjects for surveillance capitalism.") In a follow-up article, Selinger writes:

The most dangerous message promoted by the Dear Tech commercial is that socially responsible technology will be on its way simply because people are asking for it. This way of characterizing change suggests tech companies aren't incentivized to promote outcomes that are more self-serving than giving the public what it deserves.

The new video says, "Let's make time to understand the impact of technology on people's lives." It's a powerful message. Too bad this ad doesn't have an Oscars-sized budget behind it.
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Tech Critics Create Powerful Video Responding To IBM's 'Dear Tech' Ad

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  • So an ad that doesn't make sense is countered by an ad that makes even less sense.

    • What are you talking about; did you not hear the dog whistles? If you respond to "pale man bad" with anything but an approving nod or raucous applause, then problem is clearly with you.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by zugmeister ( 1050414 )
        Any video that champions inclusivity for all while almost completely excluding half the human population (they had one man who they needed to spew the anti white man line) is a prime example of SJW crap not worth your time or consideration.
    • Garbage in, garbage out.
    • it made sense to me. i question the system that gives a 5 minute solution. and fear A.I. by the very folks that profit from it to be very revealing.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    IBM shouldn't lecture anyone

  • by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @05:13AM (#58207210) Journal

    "that treat people as more than data subjects for surveillance capitalism."

    Considering the source of the original advertisement [wired.com], *that* quote didn't make the list?

    • Also Left Out (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kunedog ( 1033226 )
      Straight from the vid:

      Let's remind the pale male boy's club that past and current actions exclude capable yet marginalized individuals from STEM

      That was left out of TFS, probably to (temporarily) hide how fundamentally racist and sexist this "collaboration" is.

      • I find the "pale male boy's club" comment rather funny. I work in Silicon Valley, and had three meetings last week. In all three, I was the only white guy in the room. SV is one of the brownest places in America.

    • "I would like to make open source software the standard."

      IBM, may I suggest that you start with one of the DB2 codebases? DB2 UDB for UNIX and Windows seems particularly appropriate for this exercise.

      Such a move is unlikely to damage mainframe and AS/400 DB2 revenues.

  • by mrwireless ( 1056688 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @05:14AM (#58207216)

    A. Technology is the dominant force that 'impacts' society, and society has to respond to it. The printing press created a new type of society. In philosophy this is called the "technological determinist" perspective.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    B. Social forces are the dominant force in society, and the technologies we invent and embrace (or reject) are an expression of these. For example, even though video calling was the more advanced technology, people preferred SMS instead. This is called the Social Constructivist perspective.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    These are extremes on an axis.

    In Silicon Valley technological determinism is rampant. It's the simpler of the two stories, the more attractive one. If technology is the dominant influencer, then there's no need to understand the complexities and ethics of the situations you're 'disrupting'. Narratives around blockchain/VR/singularity/etc also happily align with the "new tech is inevitable" part, because it implies any attempt to regulate it is wasted effort.

    • I'm going with number [sic] C:

      C: Society influences technology influences society ...

      You know, sort of an active ecosystem, a circle of life kind of thing.

      • Society influences technology influences society ...

        Exactly. Just take transportation as an example. As our society moved from the horse to the railroad and then to the automobile, our whole style of living, and at the same time numerous other technologies that these enabled, changed in the most basic ways.

      • I'd add that D: Fishing in the middle of Sahara is almost as hard as building sand castles on the North Pole... regardless of the society one may be coming from.

        Also, E: Time has to be right. [wikipedia.org]

    • In Silicon Valley technological determinism is rampant. It's the simpler of the two stories, the more attractive one.

      Calling it the 'more simplistic of the two stories' might be more accurate. But I think its attractiveness has more to do with its implied confirmation of the power and rightness that people in Big Tech tend to feel - there's an air of Manifest Destiny about their whole attitude.

      If technology is the dominant influencer, then there's no need to understand the complexities and ethics of the situations you're 'disrupting'.

      If technology is the dominant influencer, then you think you already understand the complexities and ethics of the situations you're 'disrupting'. There is a HUGE amount of know-it-all hubris in Big Tech, especially in the higher ec

    • by eddeye ( 85134 )

      Wow. What an incredibly insightful and well constructed post. You added tremendous value to the discussion with that explanation. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

      I just have to ask... what website did you think you were on? Slashdot hasn't seen this level of discussion in years.

      I'm sorry you wandered into this dump. I'll show you the way out if you promise to take me with you. Please.

  • Savvy vs immersed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dracos ( 107777 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @05:17AM (#58207226)

    Millennials are often labelled "tech-savvy", which they aren't: they don't know how it works any more than the gen-Xers who were called the same just because we could set a VCR clock.

    They're tech immersed, and their ignorance of how the tech companies exploit them means they're drowning in it, and no more than any previous generation know how to swim. They're dragging their elders down in it because they have no ability to warn against social media, home assistants, or smart TVs.

    • There was a time when you could not drive a car without knowing how a car works. You needed to understand how to adjust fuel mix ratio with the choke, and keep an eye on engine RPM to avoid stalling, and carry out the routine maintenance of inspecting the spark plugs, topping up the battery and changing the oil.

      Then cars got better. The mechanics became self-governing. The maintenance was still needed, but with less frequency. Now few drivers have any idea how their cars actually work - and for the most par

      • Regarding the "know how the cars work" part... some of that is in fact due to technology.

        With $300 in tools from walmart and $50 worth of books, you can completely take care of a VW bug or bus (or Porsche 356, 912, or 914), including rebuilding the engine and transmission. With computerized timing, fuel injection, etc. you simply can't do that anymore.

        • Regarding the "know how the cars work" part... some of that is in fact due to technology.

          With $300 in tools from walmart and $50 worth of books, you can completely take care of a VW bug or bus (or Porsche 356, 912, or 914), including rebuilding the engine and transmission. With computerized timing, fuel injection, etc. you simply can't do that anymore.

          100% bullshit. Those same tools work on a brand new Porsche. Cars are still mechanical devices with bolt on replaceable parts. What are you even smoking? Other than being able to read codes and do further troubleshooting the transmission still does the same job as the one in your bug. Brakes, timing belts, sensors, all replaceable on modern cars.

          Modern cars are much easier to work on. I don't have to worry about vacuum pressures, carburetor jets, finding timing marks with a strobe light or dirty points.

          • Yep.
            You just have to worry about that $400 custom made socket to get that "simple bolt on part" off in one piece. Someone hasn't been paying attention in the last few years it looks like.

            • One point of comparison is that with an old Beetle you will be out there doing that stuff with the tools regularly, since it requires constant maintenance and adjustment to keep it going.

            • Link for this $400 socket?

            • Yep. You just have to worry about that $400 custom made socket to get that "simple bolt on part" off in one piece.

              Bullshit. I regularly turn on my angle-grinder and welder to make these "custom tools", such as the clamps to keep the camshafts aligned while changing timing belts. It never costs more than a few dollars.

              Just last weekend I ground down a $2 short socket extension to make an 8mm square key for the sump nut of a Renault (No, I don't know why they decided to use square keys and not hex keys).

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. They do not fear tech and many of them are under the illusion that because they can use tech, they understand it. In actual reality, they are just as clueless to the inner workings of tech and, in particular, how it can be abused, as previous generations.

  • by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @05:26AM (#58207242) Journal

    With all the surveillance you're capable of, can you work on either getting this stuff right [washingtonpost.com], or staying away from it entirely?

  • According to the summary they telecasted something that belongs to Oscar, but they didn't say what it was.

    Note that the actual article - probably because it was written by an actual journalist - got it right. MsManisH1B did the needful and "corrected" it.

  • by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @05:59AM (#58207294)

    I saw it, and I don't think it says anything at all. Corporations should not be begged to behave, they should be forced to behave by law.

    This is what a "free market" is - a market regulated so that all players have equal power. Economics 101, Adam Smith, etc.

    • Free. Markets. Are. A. Myth.

      Why oh why is this so terribly difficult to understand? A corporation exists for a singular purpose: make money. That's it. There's no thought to ramifications (unless it directly interferes with me making money) or social costs (again, unless it prevents me from making money).

      Or have you missed the century plus history of children in coal mines, slave labor, Union busting, and shit like Union Carbide?
      To me, corporations are like fire. Great when they're performing something usef

  • by WolfgangVL ( 3494585 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @06:14AM (#58207322)

    Dear pretentious internet children.......

    Let's try to remember how much smaller the world felt 30 years ago.
    Let's consider the always listening surveillance devices we put in our homes.
    Let's point out the hundreds of options we have for things that did not even exists a decade ago.
    Let's look real close at the way we behave behind the anonymity tech provides.
    Let's try to count the hours lost to on-screen entertainment.
    Let's consider the way we've all unthinkingly fell in line with social media's personal data appetite.
    Let's remember that the reason our personal information is constantly lost is because we gave it away to begin with.
    Let's try and remember..... anything without consulting the supercomputer in our pocket.

    Dear pretentious internet children.... enjoy your free long distance, your standard in-car navigation, and your ultra efficient smart cars. Keep on buying anything you can imagine with standard two day shipping- without leaving your bedroom. Join an inviting community covering any subject that strikes your fancy, and keep using the ad-supported step-by-step video instructions on how to do anything you can think of. Go ahead and apply for hundreds of jobs in your area, even while sitting in your underwear at 2AM, after a rousing deathmatch with all of your closest *friends*

    You're welcome to all of it (as long as your parents keep paying the power bill)

    Your pal,

    Tech.

  • What IBM is trying to do is bullshitting people into thinking that tech is inherently good, and tech companies are good, too, and people just have to buy stuff from them and do good work for them and everything will be good in the end.

    What the responding video suggests instead is that tech companies are a problem, that they're not always good, that it's not enough to trust them, that we need to ensure that tech companies really become good so that tech will turn out good for all of us.

    What even the people b

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Are you nuts or something?

      Companies produce goods and services that people want. So they serve a human need, on some level. It was the ingenuity of individual entrepreneurs and companies of this world that brought us from the middle ages to today's modern living standards, right across the globe. There are fewer people living in poverty than ever before (at least as a percentage of the population), and never in human history have so many enjoyed relative wealth, hygene and safe foods. The key driver of cour

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Companies exist to make profit. Serving a human need is often a means to that end. This indirect noble goal has brought us quite far since the dark ages.

        It has also placed a premium on folks willing to learn and make it happen. The fruits of their labor is the incentive that drives them to compete with focused skill and initiative.

        An interesting thing in IBM's cognitive world vision is that it may be the next step in eliminating this premium. The current societal model did a great job of lifting us from

    • by davide marney ( 231845 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @09:13AM (#58207668) Journal

      Within the parameters of the world's operating system, for a company, the only business objective there is and ever was is profit, and that, by tendency, works against the interests of humankind and this planet.

      I have no idea what you are really trying to say. Something profitable by definition simply means that which benefits. The objective of any commercial business is to engage in commerce that is profitable. The profitable part is the only reason anyone would ever have for spending their time and talent on it.

      This isn't about money, it's about return. If you're going to spend your time doing something, you want a good return on your efforts. If you need money to live on, and aren't independently wealty, then being commercially profitable is a requirement.

      And what's the alternative? To do unprofitable work? That's no improvement. Love it or hate it, but the test of the profitability of a good or service is also an excellent proxy for its worthiness. Do you not think Slashdot a worthy place for you to spend your off hours? It's a good thing it's profitable for the owners of Slashdot, then.

      • Yeah profitable. All hail the glory of profit.
        I'm sure a great profit was made on the chemical weapons used in WW1. I'm sure awesome profit is being made by companies like Hallie Burton as we declare was across the planet. AT&T? Still pretty profitable. So is Facecrook. Then again...
        Murder is really profitable. So is theft and fraud. Those are VERY profitable.

        Funny how those seem to have laws against them because they DAMAGE SOCIETY'S ABILITY TO FUNCTION ON A LARGE SCALE huh?
        Kill one, you're a murderer.

      • I have no idea what you are really trying to say. Something profitable by definition simply means that which benefits.

        Well, yeah. We all know that. People are talking about the next step in the profit category: Is the transaction reasonable or fair for BOTH sides?

        I mean, it is VERY profitable for me to hit you over the head and take your money. I spend a few minutes finding a stick or piece of metal and end up with cash. Very profitable indeed... is that the model of how you want your businesses to operate in a society?

    • It's really glaring when people write these things and totally fail to acknowledge the stunning success story that is the profit motive. The world is better today then ever in history and it's all due to the profit motive. I do however see a clear desire to control, an authoritarian impulse that wants to deny. They tried the economy your way and it was a gargantuan failure.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        It's really glaring when people write these things and totally fail to acknowledge the stunning success story that is the profit motive.

        The service contract for the Third Reich's concentration camp management computers was paid directly to Armonk, NY. What was that about profit motive again?

        • Seriously? Argumentum ad hitlerum? You're really going with that logical fallacy instead of an argument?

          Things are better today than they've ever been in this history of the human race. The people who have benefited most are the desperately poor. This is a fact; see Stephen Pinker.

    • Nah, seeking profit is cool. Seeking advantage is not.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    This is just more leftist anti-white, anti-male rhetoric. They explicitly ask for jobs based on their skin color when they ask for solutions "led by people with lived experience of inequality" (because in modern leftism, it isn't the idea that matters, it is the skin color of the person hired to champion it).

    Boring and racebait, 1/10.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @10:14AM (#58207828)

      This form of "anti racism" is just as racist as what they pretend to fight. The only way to not be racist is to ignore race. Note to IBM: Racism does not get any less despicable when you change who you target.

      • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @11:02AM (#58207964)

        This form of "anti racism" is just as racist as what they pretend to fight. The only way to not be racist is to ignore race. Note to IBM: Racism does not get any less despicable when you change who you target.

        A good note to everyone regarding the present practice of racism. The white supremacists are an easy and obvious target. Yup, racist as all hell.

        But the far left actor/actress spouting off about how much they hate "white dudes" is no different. Evergreen University students demanding a "No Whites day" and demanding a professor who refused to participate in it be fired.

        These students should certainly be able to protest. They make a fundamental mistake however. By engaging in activities that are themselves clearly race based, they show their similarity to the white people they hate. They give the egregious white supremacists an excellent tool of rebuttal. No difference - White supremacists hate "people of color", and these far left "anti white" people are just two sides of the same coin.

        And people in the middle like me who believe that if a person makes judgments about others based on the amount of melanin in their skin and it's supposed relationship to the artificial concept known as race , they are racist. Any other interpretation is simply exposing one's racist tendencies.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. Formalize it, put the skin color in as variable and it becomes immediately obvious. It is the approach that is wrong, regardless of who applies it to whom.

          This is, of course, far from obvious to the "us vs. them" crowd, where "us" is always the virtuous ones (and often the victims) and "them" is always the bad guys. I can seem the attraction of that stance though: No need to reflect, no need to change anything on your side, no need to actually understand anything and you are always on the righteous

          • Indeed. Formalize it, put the skin color in as variable and it becomes immediately obvious. It is the approach that is wrong, regardless of who applies it to whom.

            This is, of course, far from obvious to the "us vs. them" crowd, where "us" is always the virtuous ones (and often the victims) and "them" is always the bad guys.

            In fact, I find the far left and far right to be almost identical. The Far right went crazy when the US had the audacity to elect the Kenyan Terror baby as president, and blew their collective gasket when horror of horrors, he was re-elected.

            Now the far left has simply repeated the insanity. Let us hope that cooler heads will prevail.

            I can seem the attraction of that stance though: No need to reflect, no need to change anything on your side, no need to actually understand anything and you are always on the righteous side.

            Exactly. I am always confounded over people who are so unable to form their own thought parroting one party line or another.

            This is the one place where I actually discriminate: I think stupid people like these should not be allowed to direct where a society is going.

            I have zero problem with that idea. I think that

          • " I think stupid people like these should not be allowed to direct where a society is going."
            So...
            No voting in federal elections for people who disagree with you?

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Your statement puts you straight in the manipulative dishonest crowd. That is not what I said or implied.

              • Hmm, I re-read your comment and what you commented on.

                I think I see your point, I may have misunderstood you.

                So, how do stupid people, then, direct where a society is going?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The response from the identity police basically tried to seize the narrative and make it about them.

    The original IBM ad was just an attempt to retake some ground from the surveillance capitalists. But it did focus on the right problems: Equal access, privacy, security, AI bias, and making environmental impact a core requirement for all future tech. These are all good things.

    But they are a little impersonal... the story is still about the machines... how we make them and how we use them.

    The identitarians

  • This song I'm gonna share with you It's called a letter to my penis y'all

    Dear penis, I don't think I like you anymore
    You used to watch me shave, now all you do is stare at the floor
    Ohhhh dear penis, I don't like you anymore
    Used to be you and me, a paper towel and a dirty magazine
    That's all we needed to get by
    Now It seems things have changed, I think that you're the one to blame
    Dear penis I don't like you anymore

    He sings, dear Rodney, I don't think I like you anymore
    Cause when you get to drinkin', y

  • They allowed Google to do what they did, they allowed Facebook to do what they did, and I was like, "WHAT, REALLY?"

    Now the bird has flown the coop.
  • In the 1940s IBM came up with a solution to Hitler's Dear Technology letter, "we need to identify, incarcerate and/or eliminate our undesirables". Then they automated the holocaust. Ah, technology, is there nothing it can't do?

  • by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Sunday March 03, 2019 @01:59PM (#58208722)

    This video was not moving. It was not powerful. If you think it was, you're part of the choir they were preaching to and not a part of the target audience it should've been aimed at: the people that don't care either way but need to be informed.

    They used angry, language that just pisses people off that may not share their ivory tower views. When I heard "pale male" I was immediately put off and annoyed. I stopped listening to their message, and started looking for critiques. They need to make solid points without using inflammatory language like that.

    The sound production quality was also way off. If you want to compete with a polished ad to satirize it, polish the sound at the same level of your target.

    And you don't try to reach "the middle" by putting a gay man that is so gay that he's wearing heavy makeup, jingling with his earrings, with a fancy headcovering. His entire, "F U societal norms," outfit screamed, "I need my ass kicked."

    Talk about tone deaf. They should've run this by average people and seen what they thought before trotting this out to the public.

  • Some social warriors complain that IBM didn't answer in 2-minute video all the important questions world is facing? What?

    It seems to me that group of intellectuals is making cheap PR by picking up on nonsense. Those "revolutionaries" always try to fight and destruct... because they are incapable of building and solving problems. Give them a chance to find solutions and they come up with gulags and secret police. :-D

  • It naïvely asks for moral behavior from a system that is incapable of it.

God help those who do not help themselves. -- Wilson Mizner

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