Hi,
Even though I have just taught 13 writing courses this year for the McGill
Writing Centre, I would never want any of the whopping numbers of papers I
have corrected done for me by a machine!! A TA might be useful, but how much
complex thought, how much rich ambiguity can a machine be expected to
understand? To stretch my point a bit, how much computer written poetry has
ever been memorable? Ok, poetry is much denser, much more packed with
meaning than the average essay, but what's going on here??
Aren't we just getting swept off our feet by this mega-trend to buy into
anything technology can serve up, can get us to consume more and more of?
How much of these tech toys do we really need?
I think there's a lot else going on too---like downsizing many of us out of
our jobs to make our "beloved" universities into leaner, meaner machines.
Who just wrote that it's cheaper to buy an up-graded laptop than to keep
paying a lot of us our salaries. Yes/no??
Am ranting a bit, so will just refer you to a hot topic being bantered about
by my management students. Does anyone know the work of a sociology proff
named Geroge Ritzer? He's written a lot about "The McDonaldization of
Society," part of which means the dumbing down and even destruction of many
of our jobs, along with greater and greater reliance on technology to do all
our work.
For more on how life is becoming a robot's paradise: Best, Charlotte Hussey
http://www.stedwards.edu/bss/farrall/mcdonize.htm
http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/interviews/ritzer_george.html
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