Boop Beep Bleep Bloop
Machines are often represented by the entertainment industry as objects to fear. Metallic armies and bloodthirsty cyborgs are common Hollywood archetypes. Little attention is paid to the less glamorous, but far more threatening influence of machines on social interaction. The real problem with a machine-driven society isn’t the machines themselves; it’s the relationships they create—or replace.
Wave after wave of self-service technology has bludgeoned an already-disintegrating social environment. Machines sit in self-checkout lines at supermarkets, and automated gas pumps can be found at gas stations throughout the country. This mass of touch-sensitive screens and brightly colored displays has created a new, more complex era of biological and technological interaction. Not only are these machines replacing the labor of an individual, they are also replacing that individual’s role in society, thereby serving as a surrogate social being.
Social interaction with those in the service industry has long been controlled through lists of approved phrases and standardized verbal responses. Everything from “Did you find what you were looking for?” to “Have a nice day” is mandated by a corporate overlord. Now, by filtering that interaction through machine substitutes, service workers aren’t even allowed this level of social engagement.
Interaction with customers allows service workers a chance to keep employers accountable. If consumers and workers are able to forge a symbiotic relationship, then workers’ rights are somewhat protected through their proximity to the economic base. The reduced human contact produced by self-service machines reduces the power of these personal networks. But employers aren’t particularly concerned. As explained by Judith Stepan-Norris, a UC-Irvine professor of sociology, “It is against the interest of employers to allow [too strong of] a connection between their workforce and the customer base,” because it empowers workers. Self-checkout machines therefore maximize profits not only in their inherent cost-effectiveness but also by reducing human workers’ bargaining power.
Jill Cashen, a representative for the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, explained, “Focus groups [and] our polling have shown that customers identify with cashiers more than any other employee in the grocery store. They feel personally connected with the cashier.” So, when machines are introduced, these personal connections are severed.
This type of technological integration isn’t just an unhealthy social practice; it isn’t significantly beneficial to the customer, either. IHL Consulting Group, a company that supplies informational reports on self-service machines to corporations, has reported that there are two psychological reasons people think self-checkouts are faster: “There typically is a smaller line at the self-checkout counter than the express lane, and…the personal involvement in the scanning process creates an active rather than passive process [that] appears to make the time pass faster.” However, IHL has found that though “the customer typically perceives that the self-checkout process is faster than a staffed checkout… the actual transaction process is faster with staffed checkout because of the experience of the checker and the avoidance of delays from the security features of the self-checkout devices.” Customers use these machines because of the allure of convenience, and yet they actually receive slower service.
Due to their cost-effectiveness, self-service machines are expected to continue to replace service workers. Self-checkout technology, which has been used for an estimated $161 billion dollars in purchases this last year, is expected to nearly triple to $450 billion dollars by 2008. This massive increase threatens to affect numerous jobs beyond grocery stores and banks, as the vending machine industry is no longer limited to soda and snacks. Everything from iPods to digital cameras can be bought from Zoom Shops, vending machines marketed as substitutes for electronics stores. The fast food industry has been experimenting with self-service ordering machines as well.
People talk about machines taking over the world as if it hasn’t happened already. While they worry about their computers becoming self-aware, a concept projected into their minds by science fiction, the value of human interaction is slowly eroded. Machines are the mechanisms of such erosion, but not the culprit. Whether using a self-checkout machine or placing an order through online shopping, consumers are molding a new, machine-driven social environment—an environment where genuine cultural interactivity is routinely replaced by the mere illusion of it.
An earlier version of this article ran in Jaded, a Campus Progress sponsored publication.
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