How big tech hijacked its sharpest, funniest critics - MIT Technology Review
►https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615190/how-big-tech-hijacked-its-sharpest-funniest-critics
https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/design-fiction-topper.jpg?cx=0&cy=0&cw=2999&ch=1687&sw1200 A more recent example is a May 2019 Amazon ad for the Echo smart speaker, “Caring Is Sharing.” The 30-second spot shows a young man bringing his grandfather an Echo and installing it in his apartment, presumably to keep him company and to let family members stay in touch with him. He’s grumpy about it at first, reluctant to acknowledge it, but the next time his grandson comes to visit, he’s using it happily.
Though at first glance it seems like any other TV ad, “Caring Is Sharing” looks and feels eerily similar to “Uninvited Guests,” a five-minute satirical film made by Superflux, a London-based “speculative design agency,” in 2015. That video similarly portrays an old man living on his own who has been given a range of surveillance devices by well-meaning family members: a smart fork that measures the nutrients in his food and nags him about his salt and fat intake, a smart walking cane that scolds him if he doesn’t get his recommended daily steps, and a device that connects to his bed to make sure he’s getting enough sleep. But instead of succumbing to the intrusions of these devices—as in the Amazon ad—the protagonist of “Uninvited Guests” finds ways to fool them. He puts the smart fork in a plate of salad while eating fish and chips, pays a local teenager in beer to walk the smart cane for him, and piles books on his bed so it looks as if he’s sleeping when he watches TV.
Superflux’s cofounder Anab Jain hadn’t seen the Amazon film when I spoke to her, but she’s aware that corporations have used the speculative approach for marketing. “It’s deeply problematic,” she says. “It’s why we say no to work more than we say yes.” Jain, who prefers the term “speculative design” or “critical design” (because “frankly, all design is fiction until it’s real”), says some prospective clients pay lip service “to the criticality and to the questioning,” but “in the end they just want a PR exercise.”
