User or Used: The Machine is Using Us.

Growing up, already introduced to the www and the internet, I thought it was an amazing thing. A machine is organizing and giving me outputs because it is "smart." I received a smartphone which was capable of almost everything that a desktop computer or a laptop was capable of. In comparison to my first 3310 Nokia phone, it was extremely "smart." , hence I thought it made sense that it was called a "smart"phone. 

However, having a better understanding of computers with a little programming insight, really we are teaching the machine to do things. Professor Monika Sobolevska mentioned at the beginning of this quarter that computers are "really dumb" and through programming, we teach it what to do. It's like a child, we have to teach it the most basic things step by step. I forget this often and this video reminded me that information and the things the machine does is because of the people who teach it what to do. It does not have a mind of its own, the machine was taught to do things by humans from different parts of the globe. The machine is us, connected.