This week, I’m finding myself getting somewhat excited about Lanier’s manifesto. Not because I necessarily agree with it all, but because it is doubt and partial disagreement that makes the cogs in my head really start turning. Sparking this is Lanier’s argument that advertising is the only one product that can maintain its value as everything else is devalued in the technological revolution. Perhaps he’s right. 

Robots are starting to get better. 

The semiautonomous rovers on Mars have outperformed all expectations.

Roombas are sweeping our floors.

And, yes, you can buy a car that parks itself.

It’s about the worrisome coexistence of people and continuously-improving machines, where advertising will come to thrive on whatever it that’s being invented and consequently pulling the rug from under all else.

But, alas! What about human innovation, the very thing that brings the above into being? It feels strange to fear the technological revolution and personify it to such a degree where it feels as if humans have no hand in eliminating themselves making their lives easier with machines. Besides, it seems that with the technological advancements, new jobs are created as much as old ones become eliminated (to be fair, Lanier makes this point, too).

Really, it’s much like Douglas Adams’ notion of the Electric Monk:

“The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder… Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”
— Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency)

While, presumably, we are capable of making a machine that believes and feels for us – although the very fact throws into question the essence of feeling and believing – we are yet to see one that can be really and truly capable of innovation, which in itself is the prerequisite for advertising anyways.

Bloomberg Businessweek, Can a Computer Predict Innovation?