The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT

Chang, director of programs at Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, debuts with a lofty history of the relationship between technology and the human body. Taking a scholarly approach, she explores how technologies from the Gutenberg printing press to ChatGPT embed themselves in human life, arguing they are “not simply objects but architectures that organize our bodies in space and time.” Each chapter focuses on technology’s relationship to an aspect of the body. Beginning with hands, Chang demonstrates how writing by hand allows for creativity (everyone develops their own style), whereas typing on a computer or phone promotes conformity (“Your movements translate to a ready-made palette of autocompleted words and actions that structure your encounters with the world”). Likewise, Chang considers how human vision, hearing, and voice are being molded by the computerized mechanisms that try to imitate and replace them. Throughout, she demonstrates that technology has the power to subjugate the body, but it can also be constructed in ways that enrich lives and enhance expression (she points to mixtape culture and online communities). Chang’s ideas are not particularly new, but she succeeds in documenting how history can inform the future. The result is a welcome road map for those trying to make sense of the fear and hype around new technologies like AI. (Nov.)