Technical Obsolesence
Chris, Fraser and Peter discuss the rates of change and life cycles in technology.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by Tell Me Studios for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm Fraser McGruer and I'm here with Peter Coghill and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing the optimal rate of technological obsolescence. So Chris, this is very much on your mind at the moment. Tell us why.
Speaker B:Well, it's because it really got triggered by visits to the hospital I had recently and I was having my back scanned and I wanted to get the scans so I asked for them and they gave them to me on a CD at which point I realized I had no mechanism for reading a CD nor transferring a CD to any other data storage format. So it got me thinking about sort of technology obsolescence and the fact that it occurs and we can all think, you know, the classic one is people thinking about the transition from vinyl to tapes to CDs to iPods and now streaming and that, you know, these things happen and there's a sort of life cycle to a technology. It comes in, it's new, it's novel, it grows users and then slowly, you know, you find out what the limitations are in it for some reason and something new develops and that's fine. And the rate of change is usually manageable but I definitely have this sense that when it comes to sort of software technologies, the rate for me as a user, the rate of change in the technology has got beyond my ability to become expert in the use of the thing in the first place or for it to be useful to me and so I've got this growing sense that we are developing new technologies and old technologies are becoming obsolete too quickly for humanity to actually get the most out of the technologies and I just think that's an interesting feature and I've won with you.
Speaker A:Okay, so presumably you're on the same side of this as Chris, Peter.
Speaker C:Well, I have a slightly different take. I think maybe Chris has maybe developed a set of ways of going about life and he's quite happy with those. He doesn't feel the need to evolve as much but I think the value in a technology is not just inherent in that technology and that specific instance's use. I think every technology, consider this as a consumer electronics market, when they first brought out USB or a similar standard, in bringing it out and people using it, they've learnt a lot about how people want to use electronics and that informed USB too. So a lot of value in any given technology is in its obsolescence, in what comes after it, what is learnt from it about its weaknesses and about its shortcomings that enable you to make something better in the future.
Speaker A:Well, hold on. Making something better but better for who? If it's better for the users of the technology, I understand what you're saying, the process, part of it is its kind of half-life, if you like, but what if it suddenly, as I think Chris is saying, I could be wrong, is saying, well, if that starts becoming, that change in itself starts becoming inconvenient to the user?
Speaker B:I mean, I think part of the issue here is that the rate of technology change is being driven by people who are using the technologies very frequently. They're developing them and they're testing them with a relatively small pool of people and there's almost like a relativity to the user and their experience of time with the technology. If you use something all the time, you become expert at it much more quickly and familiar with it much more quickly and you then like, oh yeah, okay, I've got this, I can use it and I can develop expertise in it and so something feels old to you quicker than for the intermittent user who might only have used the thing twice before they've got to work out how to use the next new one. And I think those people, those frequent users are currently the ones who are deciding when the next new thing should come out. There's kind of a class system within technology or something like that.
Speaker C:I think that's sort of inevitable because that's where most of the data comes from that informs those companies which produce new products to go into the consumer market. So they're going to have a louder voice because there's just much more data from them.
Speaker B:I think that the question that technology companies need to ask themselves is about the utility of the technology itself and where that utility comes from. If musical instruments changed every six months, there was no such thing as a guitar, it was now a seven-stringed instrument, that might be interesting but how good would music be if you had this rapid evolution in musical instruments? Now it might be something very different and we might have evolved very different kind of music, were that the case? But there's something about allowing a community to form and to learn how to use this thing and then to broaden that community and get other ideas about how to use the thing. When technology was moving more slowly, you would get people being expert in musical instruments or the use of a plough or something like that and that in itself creates new capability and if you don't give time for the human expertise to interact with the technology and a breadth of human expertise to interact with it, I think you're missing something in the ultimate goal which is to be better at whatever is the thing the tool does in the first place.
Speaker A:Okay, so I've got a take on this and I have to confess I'm probably more on Chris's side of things so you're going to have to convince me here, Peter. But I get so fed up on my computer, on all my electronic devices about being asked to update my operating software. I just get so fed up, it does what I want it to do, I'm quite happy with it, just leave me alone. That's one level of it, but what really annoys me now is how Apple keeps trying to trick me to update my software and they did this to my wife recently, they tricked her. Whereas they ask you, do you want to update? No, I still don't want to update it after six months, stop asking me. And so you say, you swipe right, whatever it is, saying, no, I don't want to. And then it asks you to put in your code to your phone, your passcode. And if you go, oh, all right, you pass the in, but actually you're secretly, without realising it, saying, yeah, no, update this when I'm asleep tonight if this is plugged into a power source. And so unbeknownst to you in the morning, you wake up with this new bloody software on your phone, it's taking up more data and slowed down your phone and I've been tricked into it. And what annoys me is the big brother aspect with a smile on it going, well, we're doing this to help you to make you operate better. And that really annoys me. That's the first thing I want to say. The second thing is, is maybe, again, maybe this is proving the Luddite in me. But when you talked about how technology moved more slowly before, is I'm just thinking of the loss. I think there's a loss of something. And so I maybe I'm over romanticising it, but I like the idea of craft, for example, of craftspeople, of carpentry and all these kind of things which barely exists anymore. Or those sort of skills are not so common as they were. Am I just being a hopeless, dopey romantic?
Speaker C:I think you're being a bit pastoralist. Back in the day, people didn't develop a romantic relationship with their plough. They just saw it as a tool and they just got on and used it. So I think this sort of having lost something is a bit over egged. But as technology developers, as more and more stuff gets done for us, life generally becomes easier. We can concentrate more on being profitable or having a good time. These trade, these sort of these desirable things like artisan projects, you can still get people to make you furniture in a traditional way. They become better because you're able to, you don't have to accept shoddy furniture from somebody who just happens to make furniture. You can get the best furniture from people who are very good at making specific types of furniture. Or arts and crafts like itsy, the way people make cards and knitting and things. I think it's going to be stronger than ever.
Speaker A:So it brings about a value that didn't exist before because before it was just quite functional and prosaic. Fair enough. I accept that. What about Apple trying to trick me all the time into updating?
Speaker C:Well, I think you've got, yes. So there is definitely going to be an aspect of companies wanting to stimulate the market by making a new thing that is either desirable or you in some way force it on users. It stimulates further onward sales. But you have to accept that Apple do have their customers' interest at heart in some way because they trade on their reputation. So if they just allow you to use the same old software with all the bugs and all the security vulnerabilities and don't try to help you take on board the new updates, then you'll suffer data loss and you'll suffer failures that they could have helped you with. So just like the state chooses to educate children, lots of children don't want to go to school, but they don't realize how important it is until they've been at school. So it's like having things forced on you that you don't really realize are a good idea until it becomes too late. Okay, great.
Speaker B:It is good for you. But I think it sort of, to me it highlights an interesting separation between the improvement in the capability and the change in the interface with which you interact with that capability. So I feel at the moment both are changing. If you take the example of a plough, if a farmer turns up and their plough looks exactly the same and it operates in the same way but it just cuts a much better furrow in some way, then that would be appreciated by the farmer. Suddenly, somehow, behind the scenes, my plough has improved. If they turn up and their plough is now a tractor and they've no idea how to drive a tractor, they're going to be less impressed. And I think it's getting this separation between – and this is happening increasingly as the percentage of human effort in these things is dwindling – that if they can just keep all of the improvement in capability somehow behind the curtain and the buttons that we have to press more or less look the same but when you press them they just work better, I think people would be much happier with that. It's when the buttons suddenly all move around all over the place.
Speaker C:I think that's the definition of Ludditeism. If the farmer who had this single furrow plough was dragged by his ox was made to sit in this tractor and give it a go, he would very quickly realise the benefit of it because he could then lay off all his lay workers and he could just do the whole field himself, one man.
Speaker B:What I'm trying to say is if you could take the ability of a tractor and deliver that capability…
Speaker C:I think a lot of software companies try to do that. They try and make it seamless. Some of these updates will include new functionality that's sort of snuck in there and good UI design, you desperately try to minimise impact to the UI but occasionally if there's a whole new thing which it can do, you need to provide a new button otherwise people won't find it, it'll never get used. So there will be changes. Yes, but sympathetic design and sympathetic change management is very important.
Speaker A:Theoretically that makes sense but in practice I still get bloody irritated with constant stuff from Apple, I wish they'd leave me alone. Anyway, I don't want to go… Chris, do you want to say?
Speaker B:Yes, I was just going to say I think there's a sort of difference to be thought about between technology evolution and technology revolution and I think generally in the past the rate of a brand new technology turning up and being game changing in some way was much slower. And those revolutions didn't happen terribly frequently and now they do. People can adapt, obviously evolution is more gradual and easier to adapt to. I think it's the perception of constant revolution that people find difficult.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's bring it back to that then because I know one of the things we want to talk about and what we touched upon at the beginning was the rate of technological obsolescence. So is there an optimal rate that technology can become obsolete or is it just a fact of life that it's happening faster and presumably will continue to happen faster?
Speaker C:Well I think it's a fact of life that technologies will become increasingly quickly obsolete but I think there are ways of managing it. So the problem of data storage, we used to have cassettes, now we've got CDs, now everything, then it was MP3s. But once it got to the point where it was all MP3s or it was all subscription based, so if you use Spotify or Deezer or something similar, you no longer have to worry about your storage formats. I think that's a useful positive change that can occur with other software and other services. So a good example, you probably didn't notice the transition between copper and lead pipes going to plastic pipes in your infrastructure because it was just so behind the scenes, it just didn't affect you. You still got the water out whenever you turned the tap on. I think we did notice it because there's always roadworks. Well you know there's a transition and you will notice things during the dynamic change bit but there's lots of back end stuff that goes on in infrastructure that you don't notice at all. You don't see inconvenience when it's outside your door but there's a huge amount of change going on with internet and things that you just don't notice.
Speaker A:I don't want to come back to where we were because I recognise the illogical extension of what I'm saying is I'd still be in a mud hut somewhere cooking my roast deer or something and I go no I'm quite happy. So I don't want to go down that but back to this question of do we just say okay well the rate of technological change is increasing. Presumably there comes a point where...
Speaker B: hing you've just bought was £: Speaker A:But hold on is that really the question? Your question was do we want that to happen but is there anything we can do to stop it?
Speaker B:Well I mean it's obviously a very competitive market you know the barriers to producing a new version of something are much less because the product isn't you're not having to build it in a factory somewhere and you know you change all your equipment to build it because the barriers to changing it and developing it further are less than they have been. And because this is you know a real focus of economic activity and there's a competitiveness in it there's no incentive to slow things down other than the fact that you might alienate users and there could be a consumer movement to hold on a minute you know can we just have this one for 12 months please without interfering with it. Because those other guys over there are changing things too quickly and I just I think it would be interesting to see whether you because again the decisions at the moment seem to be being driven by those who are most au fait with the technology and those for whom the transition is least problematic. Will there be a consumer voice that actually gets us to slow down our technological advancement?
Speaker A:Yeah I just I think that that that consumer voice will always be you know a voice crying in the wilderness because ultimately companies whoever's driving the technology will always be looking at as as Peter said as a way to to ease that that change and there was always going to be a certain element of people like myself going no no we don't want this change but whether we want that change or not or how uncomfortable comfortable we feel it about it or not is irrelevant because it's going to happen anyway. Is that just a realist way of looking at things?
Speaker C:Potentially but I think there's I think there is hope I mean you can there's in the world we live in today you you can collect together and create collective action to prevent this in a way so there's nothing to stop you from taking all your iPhones that you collectively whinge about because they change so much and writing your own operating system for it or employing people to write your own operating system. But yeah if you've got if you found enough people who didn't like it together you could fund that and that this happened one of the reasons that the Linux market is very is very diverse is because people like one way that it's presented so they sort of keep that going even though the its original branch goes off in a different direction so they like the way it looks that way it feels so they keep that particular branch going and so it sort of splits it. You get two different versions maintained concurrently so you can do that with phones you can you could get you could imagine a they might might be out there already a version of Android which is designed to be static and very similar and a very generic version of Android that doesn't change much but the underlying code is up to date it's just the UI is different to the base.
Speaker A:It just you know I always have this fantasy about moving off I don't know why why Wales but moving off to North Wales and having my own little community there and just you know no software updates using iPhone ones yeah thing after that and I say Wales when I say Wales actually mean you know probably somewhere in the Mediterranean but anyway.
Speaker C:But looking at the iPhone though the iPhone is a really nice example where you know the really cool bits of technology really and the iPhone is this is in the interface is this little rectangle that has a screen that's touch activated and a small number of buttons around it in different configuration that hasn't really changed very much the software that how it presents the information has evolved but that hasn't changed so maybe you know they maybe that that sort of interface is going to be is going to be in your phone. Because it doesn't. They've got it right.
Speaker B:Well of course this brings to mind the commercial imperative to to update and make things obsolescent you know that's why why fashion exists for example isn't it otherwise you'd have the same pair of trousers for for life so you know there is there is clearly a drive to sell us things but but equally there is a drive on the part of consumers to be able to to use the things and I think that the. The balance between those two will develop over time.
Speaker A:Okay I want to wrap up before we do a quick question any bit of technology that you miss some past technology that you feel quite affectionate about which no longer exists or is or you were quite odd for still using that bit of technology. Take a moment to think about this. Yeah Chris.
Speaker B:So for me it's the way computer games used to be on a ZX Spectrum for example that I have a real nostalgia for the fact that the graphics looked nothing like you know what they were actually supposed to represent in the in the games and yet I feel that made them much more creative and imaginative things than they are today where I don't play computer games today. Can you give me an example? So a game like Jet Set Willy for example is you know was a game which involved a little character jumping around platforms and collecting things and trying not to die and it was just a few pixels stuck stuck together but the engagement I had with that game far outweighs anything that you see today. And further in fact I watched the latest sort of Harry Potter film The Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I realised one technology which I could definitely do without is CGI that any film that you know has a big action sequence in CGI I might as well just nip to the loo for five minutes and come back when it's finished. I just find CGI so boring.
Speaker C:I think you need to suspend your disbelief a little bit more for a skit.
Speaker B:Well that's the problem you don't have to you know it's like here's a thing you know. It's too prescriptive perhaps.
Speaker C:Peter? I miss big CRT TVs. What's CRT? Oh with the going out the back. Yeah the huge big bulge out the back because they were naturally size limited because you just couldn't get a bigger thing through the door so you couldn't make them any bigger than a certain size. It's a proper bit of furniture. Yeah because I'm not a big TV person I like films and I like dramas and things but I'm not one of these people who has a TV on all the time just in the background. I find that incredibly distracting and although there's something good about being able to buy a TV of literally any size now. You can pick your size to suit your space. People tend to go for the biggest TV they can get and having an enormous big bright rectangle in the room is enormously distracting. So these size limited huge big things in the corner is something I miss.
Speaker A:I can think for me it probably didn't feel like this at the time but looking back going back to your example with Jet Set Willy I remember again on the ZX Spectrum, ZX Spectrum Plus I think. If I remember correctly to load the game you had a little tape that you put into a tape recorder that was in the case of the ZX Spectrum Plus attached to the computer. And you had this sort of slightly nerve-wracking minute or two of it making uploading noises and say three times out of four it would work. But there would be a fourth time when it wouldn't work.
Speaker B:When you were ten minutes in and it crashed.
Speaker A:Yeah so that sort of tense expectation will it or won't it work. At the time actually it was just a pain. But looking back and I think it's the noises is the emotional sort of when I listen back to those noises which I won't try and do an impression of. But the other thing is I remember my family had this massive record player which was a sort of a half record player half sideboard. And one of the cool things it did was stack records for you and it did it in some sort of automatic fashion and that was really cool. But just on the flip of that one thing I remember coming in which just actually two things that just blew me away was one was the first time our household ever had a remote control for the television. And that was just you know I felt like Buck Rogers with that. And that led to so many fights between myself and my brother. It's not true. But similarly I remember the first time when we got a video and played a video and we were just astonished. We were like we were sort of like going to see switching a light on for a pygmy when we when we rewound it. And we were watching all these people going fast in backwards and it was just it was just it was yeah it was it was the future. Yeah. There we go. All right. I really enjoy that chap. So thank you as always. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Chris Wragg and Peter Coghill. Thank you for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. Until next time. Bye bye.
