computer as control
This strategy looks at the consequences that using computers has on control. One way to think about control is our ability to make decisions, anther way to think about control is about narrowing our field of vision in terms of how we approach decision-making, limiting our options. The purpose of this strategy is to intentionally grapple with power and to make efforts to retain, restore, or grow our power over how we want to be in the world, how we want to experience it, and how we want to experience each other.
All of our experiences with each other - whether in our daily lives, in our workplaces, in our public institutions - are sites of possible relationship. We should maximize our control over the design of these sites of our relationships. The idea of progress and the force of capital is encouraging more of this control to move into the world of computers because computers are mostly thought about as products. The action of computer products being developed and used are said to be good for the economy and productivity, as well as innovation and convenience. Both government and industry are currently incentivized to run computers through as many interactions and transactions as possible. In that enthusiasm, significant blocks of control are moving out of our hands an into protected and private infrastructures and/or shifting and accelerating existing power dynamics. Some examples:
Contracts and control
While paper forms have always been a source of friction and inaccessibility, some of these forms and exchanges change again when moved online. In cases such as legal contracts, when documents were exchanged in paper, each party could easily strike out portions of a clause or idea that they would not agree to. In moving contracting and permission forms online, there is much more of an "all or nothing" signature process, making it an uphill battle to seek exclusion from clauses in liability waivers and leases. This shifts power to the issuing party, reducing control on the side of the signatory.
Work and control
One of the most common workplace experiences is being required to use computer systems that make doing work harder, and reduce the ways in which we can participate in how the work is done. There are also cases where workers have to tell the people they serve that they don't have a better answer than "the computer says so" when asked "why" the experience works a certain way. This experience is common in most administrative functions because the computer systems are not designed by the worker, and may not have even been designed for the sector in which they are sold.
Education and control
In a large North American school board, a computer system used by students was chosen because it was offered to the school board for free. The experiences offered by this computer system for the administrators, teachers, students and parents was not an intentional design and purchasing choice, and control over this kind of computer system is one where the people impacted by its use are disenfranchised from participating in how it is designed.
Parking and control
Automated systems for parking often require one to enter a license plate number which puts the vehicle into a computer system, sometimes without any paper slip to display on the dashboard. Before these systems were installed, people could more easily share and transfer the parking fee they had paid, either by handing a transferable slip to the next person when leaving, or by the time in the parking meter being applied to the next person to use the spot. This is a reduction in the control we had to share.
Housing access and control
During the height of the pandemic, decisions about evictions were moved fully online. As a result, people in an already precarious situation were forced to plead their case in an uncomfortable online setting, adding to the stress and tension of an already emotional and difficult time. Moving these hearings online also caused a reduction in the chances people had to meet in hallways and consider mediation or alternatives.
The purpose of thinking about computers and control is to map the transfer of control and its consequences. This enables clarity about the consequences that extend far beyond concerns about our data or the literal costs (or cost reductions) of the computer system. It opens the space to talk about how we want to design the environment of our interactions, and why. This is the design of our society.