Technology, Feedback, and Joy.

Artisans are in the joy business.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

I spotted an interesting and thoughtful article by Rowan Atkinson in the Guardian that left me wondering. The essence of it is that we have a narrow perspective on the benefits of electric cars, focusing overly on one aspect - emissions - and avoiding other material - and commercial - inconvenient truths on aspects of the climate impact of their production, maintenance, and consumption of other critical earth resources. The logic is sound, but that was not what retained my attention. What did was his view that electric cars have no soul. They do not bring joy.

I have a bias. I am a lifelong fan of participative motorsport and have a lightweight Lotus track car that I use for a few days a year, plus driving for pleasure. It’s over a quarter of a century old now, and has yet to top 20,000 miles. Those miles, though, have been a joy.

It is an absorbing experience - it has no “driver assistance” technology, no power anything in fact. Driving it quickly involves an intimate, visceral relationship with the engine, the tyres, brakes, manual gearbox and the track surface. It feels alive, and rewards the attention paid to it in satisfaction and joy. It is, for me, a wonderful source of “flow”.

It is not about performance; it is about involvement. In sheer performance terms, a mid-priced electric car would show it the way home, though probably with fewer smiles.

The thought it triggers is around relationships.

I have one with the car is unlike anything I have with technology. Technology gives me data, not visceral feedback. I find it sterile, useful, but sterile.

The relationship that concerns me more is the one we have with consumption for its own sake. I think Rowan Atkinson has a point - electric cars have not been designed to save the planet, but they are a very effective tool for wealth transfer from shareholders in obsolete technology to those in new.

The artisan in us creates products and services which are catalysts of relationships - not just with each other, but with a sense of something bigger than what we create.

More stuff, and more data, do not equal more joy. More stuff brings more overwhelm, more waste, and less connection. Stuff does not feed the soul.

AI can manufacture poetry and art, but it does not create a visceral connection or, I suspect, even fleeting moments of joy. Performance without joy is a waste.

Artisans are in the business of moments of joy. The Lotus will, inevitably and rightly, become obsolete, maybe a museum piece if it’s lucky, but I am grateful for the moments of joy it has enabled along the way.

Artificial intelligence, intelligently and humanly leveraged, may just give us enough freedom from tedium to do work that brings joy to ourselves and others.

That would be result.