Session 98: "Prompting McLuhan"

If the medium is the message and AI is a medium, what's the message? Seeking insights through historic lens of media guru, Marshall McLuhan.

It seems the famous media guru gets resurrected with each new confounding media arrival. First with understanding TV's impact in 60's. Then again posthumously, to help make sense of the internet in 90's. Now, once more he's being called forth to aid us in grasping the meaning of AI! Join us to explore how McLuhan might perceive events of today as we hear from leading McLuhan scholars.

Andrew, who runs the McLuhan Institute writes, “If the past has anything to teach us it can only do so as the present. We can only evaluate the past or illuminate it from the point of view of the present. We can only correct the true bias of the present time by coming to know that time as A time, not THE time."

Jeff's superb article: How to Become a Famous Media Scholar: The Case of Marshall McLuhan adds, "His proposed remedy is not unlike that put forward by “media literacy” advocates today: the idea was to nurture critical habits of mind in the populace, so that we may awaken from our dream state, consciously observe our own folklore, and thereby neutralize the PR puppeteers."

The case is often made that understanding AI can be found by looking at previous tech driven change periods like the arrival of the web or the printing press as analogs for what's happening today. Perhaps. But is the past an accurate way to foretell the future? Does history repeat itself enough to permit making big bets based on events from different eras?

From Jesse Hirsh in the Medium. "In our contemporary media ecosystem, characterized by the omnipresence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Marshall McLuhan’s seminal concept “the medium is the message” * has never been more relevant. That the impact of any medium itself is far greater than whatever content it delivers."

McLuhan was famous for using what he termed "probes" to pry observers lose from their fixed mindsets. Koan seeming phrases like "the medium is the message" or "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it" to provide cognitive dissonance to help us shift perspectives.

And more!

Speakers:
• Andrew McLuhan, Director, McLuhan Institute
• Jefferson Pooley, Professor of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College