Best-selling author Nicholas Carr: “Computer exacerbate social inequality” – Business Week

Paid Franz Hubik

Good jobs are being replaced by computer-controlled machines, predicts Nicholas Carr. The best-selling author warns: The quest for efficiency destroys human abilities.

Economic Week: Mr. Carr, computers and algorithms perform more tasks for us. Are we the slaves of our smart phones

Nicholas Carr: We rely in many situations in our daily life too heavily on computer. This is particularly evident since we all carry around a computer in our pocket to hand with us. We appreciate the convenience, efficiency and time advantage we allow new technologies doubt. But we often overlook the fact that everything stays on track. We let the computer do more and more things – but do not notice here is that we were happier than we have done these things even themselves

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• Nicholas Carr

  Nicholas Carr is an American financial journalist and best-selling -author. He writes for the “New York Times Magazine” and the “Wall Street Journal” about the social impacts associated with digital technologies. His book, “Who am I, When I’m Online” has been translated into 23 languages. Suspended In September 2014 his latest work appeared. Where man is, if computers decide . 19.90 euros. ISBN 978-3-446-44032-6. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich.

to Example?

If you have a car drove with gears for years and then switch to automatic, you feel totally free first. Your left foot should not pimp your right hand does not stick more constantly on the stick shift. But after some time beats the pleasure to have less to do, in a different feeling to: boredom. The coordination of hand and foot with gas, brake, clutch and gear shift lever takes us in just the right proportions. Do not overwhelmed us, but they do not under-challenged us. The happiness researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found out that we are so grateful and happy are after barely an activity such as after driving

Straight road transport aims automation but also on a different aspect.: security. Is not it consistently from companies such as Google and Daimler to set in the future on self-propelled cars? At least 90 percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error.

I am very glad that there are people who work on cars that can run without human help. But I do not think it’s in human life only comes to security. Most of us are better drivers than passengers. Additionally, we are far from that autonomous vehicles in all conceivable situations to function effectively. For a long time, we will continue to involve people in the driving process – at least as reassurance to intervene if need be can. We must remain vigilant and do not try too much to digress with our attention, or we fail when we really needed – when the engine suddenly fails

Weighing us computer into a false sense of security?

Yes, in our pursuit of security and efficiency, we might go too far. The US Federal Aviation Administration has published a report last year, which suggests that our pilots no longer have enough experience in manual flying. They rely so much on the computer and on-board instruments is that they lose their own flying skills and instincts. If we go back stronger rather than the responsibility for the aircraft and the passengers on the pilots move to the computer, perhaps we would fly safer than is now the case.

Today there are far fewer aircraft crashes as it was 15 or 20 years. Technological achievements have yet contributed to this.

Absolutely. The automation in aviation is a success story. But over the past 100 years of aviation history, we have moved the work piece by piece from the human to the machine. And today we see that we may have gone a step too far. Even if automation is welcome in principle, that is not have to be that any further automation is also helpful. At a certain point we draw the human expertise back too much and do things by uncertain than before.