This despite the obvious problems with such a scheme: the consequences of midair collisions, short battery life, overhead congestion, regulatory hurdles and more. Also despite the fact that delivery drones, like jetpacks, are really only practical as sfx in an sf movie.
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
2/
As @AndrewKersley reminds us, Prime Air was the centerpiece of a massive PR push, with school tours of a "secret" facility and showy promotional videos (high-sfx sf movies, really). Execs said drones would arrive "within months."
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
4/
All of this raises the question: why? Why spend millions on something that was obviously not going to work out?
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
My theory is tech companies promise to deliver impossible things n order to cultivate an air of mystical capability that's invoked to mask real-world awfulness.
6/
The more automated an Amazon warehouse is, the more workers it injures. Amazon warehouses injure more workers than any other kind of warehouse. https://t.co/eHZw2zmW0w
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
8/
Facebook's promise of AI-based content moderation is a good way to distract us from its dysfunctional, high-handed and corrupt moderation practices, making htem seem like a minor hurdle that will soon fall.https://t.co/z33I5oCjwV
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
10/
It's all the kind of thing @raaleh calls "jingling keys" - a distraction for the technologically unsophisticated (and techies who have dipped into their own product) while everyday corporate crimes are committed under our noses.
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) August 5, 2021
eof/
How many high-tech promises are based on a systematic inability to distinguish between realizable technology and self-regarding SF fantasy?
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