I have been on this for so long now that it seems to have become my raison d’être. However, if we need any further evidence of the rot our current technologies have brought us, three stories I read last week make the point evident.
First up, and as I have been hearing for a while, self-checkout kiosks, employed pretty much everywhere (my local Stop & Shop in Allwood has a stifling amount of the things) are being reconsidered; in fact, they are being taken out of certain stores.
I take the below quote from an online article:
“The Shrewsbury supercenter Missouri Walmart removed their every self-checkout kiosk after logging a staggering 509 police calls.”
It seems since taking the machines out, calls to cops in that Missouri area have plunged to 183 so far this year, and arrests have been cut in half. It seems stealing in the form of card skimming (something I guess I heard about in passing and when I read about it, I still don’t understand it, so look it up on your own if you are curious) and good old shoplifting were becoming all too epidemic in the age of the machine. And this is only the latest. Dollar General performed a massive self-checkout removal in 12,000 of their stores. Sam’s Club is removing all machines and implementing AI-powered ‘Scan & Go’ technology (if this proves a better solution, only time will tell). I can only hope I come to see more of these ‘pens,’ as I call them, taken out or at least reduced in stores. I wasn’t so aware of the shoplifting (although I had heard something about it here and there) but I complained all the time that the more reliant a store was on the self-checkout, the less they had of actual cashier-manned lanes (sorry for the gender-inclusive language with the use of the word ‘manning’) and if anything, it seemed to me there were more folks waiting to check out…in manned lanes or not…than ever before.
I also read a lengthy report, which I won’t go into here, about how scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unearthed some more than interesting (and I don’t mean interesting in a good way) results of brain scans of ChatGPT users. In a paper that is now under peer review, they tested the cognition of people, between the ages of 18 and 39, put into two groups: those who used ChatGPT to write and those who did not.
Do I even need to relate the findings?
I’ll tell you anyway.
According to the tests, ChatGPT users “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” They ever grew lazier with each successive essay they wrote. These folks had “weaker neural connectivity and under-engagement of alpha and beta networks.”
Is anybody really surprised?
This isn’t the first test of this kind. MIT, The Guardian, and quite a few other reports have reported on the decline in mental acuity among ChatGPT users.
Lastly, I just read that California just made it illegal to use your cell phone, in any capacity, while driving. Sure, in my great state of NJ, you can be ticketed for holding a phone to your ear or texting while driving, but this new CA law can also be applied to drivers looking at their phone for navigation guidance. With the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), reporting that distracted driving was the cause of death for over 3,000 individuals in 2023 in road traffic accidents, maybe it’s time we all not just put down our phones (me included) but turn them the f’ off when driving!
I’d go one further (and if anybody disagrees I don’t much care) but how about we outlaw those huge dash screens modern cars come equipped with?! Talk about a distraction while driving! Really, do all the terrible drivers coming up on my bumper, when I am in the middle of right lane no less, need add more distraction?
Add these questions of is technology (or the way we presently handle it) good or bad to the rush-to-judgement plastic bag ban in my state, the quandary over recycling, and all the good MTV really did us. Merrily we roll along to Skynet, my little droogs.
