Ode "Delete"

    In the stories of Azimov, artificial intelligence enslaves humanity, guided by the laws of robotics. Say, otherwise humanity will destroy itself, which AI cannot allow by its nature (see the film "I am a Robot").

    Raskin rephrased the first law of robotics as follows: “A computer cannot harm a user’s data or, through inaction, allow a user’s data to be harmed.” Developers of human-computer interfaces are trying to implement this law as much as possible. But this law can also turn against humanity.

    The desire of developers to prevent data loss leads to the fact that the user is protected in every way from operations involving irreversible destruction of information. Let’s keep everything forever, if only something important isn’t removed! All versions, all letters, all drafts, all conversations - the more information we keep, the better! For example, Google explicitly states on the invitation page in Gmail: “you'll never need to delete another message”.

    Instead, modern interfaces offer us tools for finding the necessary information in those slag mountains that are inevitably formed as a result of the “we never delete anything else” policy. Do you believe that full-text search, tags, faceted classification and other fashionable things today will save us after several years of such a life? What Hercules will undertake then to clean these Augean stables?

    Before it’s too late, remember the Delete button! Take responsibility for the risk of deleting important information and clean up your digital repository! Otherwise, tomorrow it will not be your repository anymore - you simply will not be able to capture it with your eyes.

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