Thursday, May 16, 2024

Losing Our Cool (Thanks A Lot Apple)

Allow me to begin by stating I am not just another old guy who is anti-technology. I embrace it. Use it every day. In fact, I am quite profieceint with my MacBook Pro. I use it for editing my photography and creating advertising and marketing ideas and promotions for the business I work for in specifically that capacity...part time (I'm still retired the rest of the time). I also know how to use an iPad and iPhone. We have Apple TV and subscribe to Apple+. I've been an Apple person since the Commodore 64. But now, well, now they've gone too far. Not necessarily with the product, but with the way they are promoting it. This is a link to the commercial they're running to promote the new iPad Pro. 

https://youtu.be/ntjkwIXWtrc?si=vgHMHzKC39C5XcSK

In it they show how it can do digitally, and by using AI, everything we used to do "hands on" by crushing everything that can now be created-written-composed-illustrated-taught manually or by using simpler technology. I looked closely at what is crushed...cameras (including a Polaroid), vinyl record albums and a turntable to play them, paint and paint brushes (art can now be created by key strokes instead of brush strokes), a clay sculpture, musical instruments (now you don't actually need to know how to play piano to be able to play piano), and even books! It appeared they were journals that were flattened and destroyed, but they had pages so they were still books.

I'm sure the benefit to this newest Apple product is intended to be a more efficient and faster way to do business...including your personal business. But it eliminates the need for all those cool things that, in the video, have been smashed flat as a pancake. Or should I say flat as an iPad Pro? 

I guess my point in all this is that we are losing our cool. Is it cool to make a photograph entirely by using artificial intelligence? Or to to create a watercolor style "painting" without actually using paint? Or to keep a journal without pen and paper? I understand all of those things may not be considered cool by someone under the age of 40. And those are the ones creating all this new technology. But, please, for the love of all things holy, can you just take a single solitary moment to dig yourself?



  Roger O'Dea    5/16/2024