What are computers for?
This post is the dual to my post, All the ways a computer can harm you.
I do an audit on all the ways to use a computer. My hope with this is to create a framework for reflection on a few things: where we can be more effective with our use of computers, where computer technologists have the responsibility to ensure that people use computers well, how are these capabilities going to evolve and which capabilities do we need to reevaluate.
Memory / Accessing Information and Knowledge
Computers allow us to keep much larger records and operate them much more efficiently than would be possible with analog record keeping.
Reflection: what records of your life are you keeping and why? what is your approach to storing information (local vs cloud), and how do you organise it? for what purposes do you access information and knowledge? what sources of information and knowledge are helpful for you? is there a way you can access them more efficiently?
Computation / Reasoning / Discovery / Simulation
Computers can act on data to transform it, perform simulations, draw inferences, make discoveries.
Reflection: in what situations do you rely on computation/inference/simulations? what systems do you use to achieve this? what are your data sources?
I think it’s going to become much easier to vibe code tools for this, and leveraging LLMs these tools are also going to be more helpful in automating reasoning.
Media creation
Computers have software tools for word processing, music production, programming, sound editing, video editing, drawing, photo editing, 3D modelling, graphic design, et cetera. Computer peripherals enable interfacing with the physical world through microphones, cameras, styluses, etc.
Reflection: what are your purposes for media creation? what forms of media are you exploring? how do you wish your tools were different?
Media consumption
We discover, access and consume a lot of media through our computers.
Reflection: how do you discover new media? how do you make choices about what media to consume? how much are your choices dictated by your internal motivations vs external conditions like marketing and recency bias? who do you consume media with? what forms of media do you consume? when do you consume media on computing devices vs in other forms? what tools do you have to make your media consumption experience better?
Communication / Dissemination / Digital identity representation
Networked computers have become the primary way to communicate and disseminate the media we create.
Reflection: who do you communicate with digitally, and for what purposes? how do digital platforms shape your communication? what does it mean to communicate well over computers? what tools or practices do you want to improve your digital communication or dissemination? who do you want to be communicating with? what is your personal digital footprint?
Automation / Control / Monitoring
Computers collect real time data, receive orders and take autonomous actions. This will especially continue with the rise of Agentic AI.
Reflection: what are you continuously monitoring? what agents do you deploy? what would you like to be?
Coordination / Marketplaces
Computers have become essential infrastructure for societies, organisations and economies.
Reflection: what computer technologies are you using to be coordinated with the rest of society? what would you wish to be more involved in? where do we need more coordination in society and what tools do we need to design for it?
Accessibility
Computers can provide facilities that make various things much easier to do, and in some cases makes them possible. For example, text-to-speech can help consume textual media more easily, or it can make it possible for those who are visually impaired to access textual content.
Reflection: what services/media/etc. are some people excluded from, and how can we make these things more accessible? which accessibility tools do you enjoy, which would you like to see more progress in?
Virtual spaces
I think messaging apps, social media sites, IDEs, and soon VR - all of these are not merely tools we use but act as spaces since we spend so much time on them. As such, the shape of these spaces starts to matter a lot.
Reflection: who designs the virtual spaces you use? how could you take control and start designing them?