Smart(ish) Phone Bee Smart

 I just got a smart phone. Let the jokes begin...

 I have not been able to resist any number of wisecracks*.

 because none of us exactly believe the phone is smart. Too many people use them everyday with no evidence of increased smartness in the world for one thing. And then there are all the stupid things they do - and smart things they can't do. Still there is a sort of acceptance that these devices are smart. That there is mart technology.

 But there isn't - there are smart technicians, and smart programmers and smart engineers. They make some very clever devices. I just haven't seen a smart one yet. Nor have I seen an intelligent search engine even though some are remarkably well thought out (by people) and use gobs of data to return information with a high probability of being what I wanted - at least based on past internet searches and whatever personal data went into the algorithms. The things these devices do "on their own" are everybit as independent as what a marble does rolling down one of those tubes in that MarbleWorks game. Some one set up the pathway that marble will roll down once dropped.

 But we rarely gush about smart some ones. It is so much more comfortable to have a device I can't figure out because it's too smart not because the people who made it might be smarter than I am. On the other hand it is a dangerous and scary thing when people accept the smartness of the computers all around us in ways they would never accept of people. Come on... hasn't anyone seen Wizard of Oz? There is a man behind the curtain. He isn't omniscient and benevolent... and he may not be evil but he definitely wants us to buy stuff. And even he may not be smart - but he sure is clever.

*why are they never wise or a smart-aleck ever smart?