Tech’s ‘improvements’ are making my life worse (and wetter)

Why does technological innovation so often make things worse? The technology companies appear to have the view that just because a product can be made, it should be.

The latest example is my new clothes dryer, which promises an end to having to set a timer. You simply choose “cupboard-level dry” or “iron-level dry” and the sensors inside the machine do the rest.

Except they don’t, so the machine is always switching itself off with a damp load of sheets still inside – sheets you had been hoping to put back on the bed sometime before midnight.

What does technology have in store for us next?Credit: Getty Images

My oven, admittedly, still has a temperature dial, but it would rather you use the drop-down menu, with which you can select the sort of food – a roast chicken, for instance – then type in its weight, and the oven will do the rest.

Of course, to use the drop-down menu you need a degree in engineering, and glasses that don’t fog up in the presence of an oven. Oh, and knees that allow you to get down low enough to see the menu.

My car, meanwhile, has all the latest safety equipment, which means it’s constantly complaining about my driving, my speed and my steering, while flashing instructions to “keep your eyes on the road”. I thought that was what my partner was for.

The technology of OpenAI (chief executive Sam Altman pictured) and the like has been making our lives worse.Credit: Bloomberg

A sloping driveway causes it to slam on the brakes, since the rear camera “reads” the surface as if it were a wall. It shudders to a sudden halt, at which point all the shopping slides off the back seat and into the footwell. This has the virtue of stopping the constant beeping that began when the car decided the box of tomatoes on the back seat was really a person who should be wearing a seatbelt.

Technology has been making our lives worse for a while. In public toilets, taps with handles have been replaced by taps with sensors, but each brand has chosen a different spot for its sensor, leaving people doing various dance routines in the hope of turning the damn thing on. Some days in a busy train station loo it looks like an early morning display of tai chi.

Should you manage to get your hands wet, you can then attempt to dry them. This was once achieved via a cloth towel on a roller, or perhaps some paper towels, but now relies on a sensor-equipped device that takes the moisture from your hands and sprays it all over your clothes.

In the world of music, LPs were long ago replaced by CDs, which offered lower-quality sound. More recently, the CD has been replaced by Spotify, offering even lower-quality sound. Life gets worse – for both artist and listener – with each “innovation”.

No one requested the change. It was foisted on us. The reason: commercial gain.

The latest in this long line of triumphs is the rise of artificial intelligence. Suddenly, a simple Google search is conducted by AI, whether you wanted it or not. Just a couple of months ago you could ask a question about, say, how they built the pyramids, then choose a source you trusted. Ah, the Smithsonian should be pretty good. Or, better still, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Now, AI supplies the first answer to your question, sometimes giving you a source, often not, and always with the disclaimer that “AI responses may include mistakes”. The “innovation” separates the information from its source, robbing the reader of any ability to assess its likely accuracy. It also means people are less likely to visit the websites from which the information was gleaned, which, over time, robs these websites of the incentive to generate such information in the first place.

No one requested the change. It was foisted on us. The reason: commercial gain.

AI is also responsible for Microsoft’s most annoying innovation since its animated paperclip of the late 1990s. Just like Clippy, “Copilot” now pops up unbidden, offering help completing the task at hand.

Some people, I suppose, say “yes” – actively participating in their own de-skilling. Most, I imagine, are like me: happy enough to write our own shopping list, love letter or essay. We sit there and get on with it, swatting Copilot away as if it were a particularly persistent mosquito.

Of course, some innovations sound terrific. You can now turn on and off your household lights using an app on your phone, meaning you no longer need an electrician to run wires through the wall cavity towards a switch screwed into the doorframe.

The same app can operate fans and heaters and can even open and shut curtains. It obviously saves a lot of time and effort – right up to the point the person with the app on their phone happens to be out for the night. Did no one think of that?

“Then again,” as the tech bros say, “the technology is possible, so let’s force it on the world.”

So, welcome to the brave new world of gleaming high technology: sitting in the dark, waiting for your wet sheets to dry, while listening to some substandard sounds.

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