Press F2 for humanity

The Aug. 28 edition of The New York Times unveiled the newest weapon in America’s War on… The Aug. 28 edition of The New York Times unveiled the newest weapon in America’s War on Inconvenience: an 18-foot vending machine stocked with milk, condoms, paper towels, toothpaste.

The Shop 2000, as it’s called, does its job efficiently and without fanfare, bagging purchases and dispensing change. So far, it seems to be a big hit, increasing customer satisfaction by eliminating that inefficient middleman, the store clerk. But as this machine reproduces its way across the country, will anyone miss having a human face behind the counter?

I doubt it. After all, they’re called “convenient stores,” not “come and hang out with the clerk stores.”

You might wonder what the big deal is. How is replacing a convenience store clerk – probably only one step away from a drone anyway – anything but an improvement? I’ll admit when I’m at Sam’s Club buying condoms and the cashier, who looks disturbingly like my grandmother, is giving me her look of disapproval, I wish she were a machine.

Another night, though, I might want the distraction, the “inconvenience,” of actual human contact, even with a random stranger. When I’ve been awake for 36 hours trying to finish a difficult programming assignment, I welcome any opportunity to leave the computer and find someone real. And there’s always been a certain camaraderie between late-night clerks and college students – something about being the only people awake at 3:30 a.m. That’s something that can’t be shared with a vending machine.

There seems to be a trade-off between convenience and human interaction. People tend to be inefficient, slow and emotional compared to their machine counterparts. And in a culture where instant gratification is the name of the game, we choose what is convenient over what is human.

It’s easy to list all the ways progress has made the routine of our lives easier: being able to shop for books and pet food online in your underwear; cell phones that make it possible for us to chat anywhere, anytime; and the ability to access virtually any information without leaving the computer.

It’s harder to recognize what we’re giving up for the sake of convenience. Man is said to be a social animal. Do we lose something by not going to a bookstore, with other people, to do our shopping? Do we lose any real social interaction when paying our bills online rather than enduring a wait in line at the bank? Or should we be able to avoid strangers whenever possible?

Now we can save human interaction for when it’s most convenient. With e-mail, we can avoid face-to-face communication unless it’s absolutely necessary. Sometimes even our friends get dumped into voicemail hell. We’re supposed to be more connected, but we also define when and how we can be reached.

Our continual pursuit of convenience is hailed as the road to progress, yet taken to its logical extreme, it’s not progress at all. If you do only what’s convenient, how can you really move forward? Many days, it’s inconvenient to get out of bed in the morning.

Our real progress is toward isolation. To pursue convenience at all costs is to ask, “How can I avoid leaving the apartment?” If I can chat online with my friends, order a pizza and have it delivered, pay for my apartment/ cubicle with electronic money, what reason is there to ever go outside? Inside this bubble, everything is under control, and more convenient.

What could possibly be missing?

Jesse Hicks knows the machines are our future. If you’d like to help him teach them and let them lead the way, e-mail him at jlhst133@pitt.edu.