SGebelin Thought Paper 2

Rebutting OLPC Criticism

The OLPC project has been criticized as an ambitious effort that will fail due to the weight of its innovations and tarnish prospects for technology based solutions to problems in the third world. Critics maintain that the project costs too much from funds better spent elsewhere, that the OS is not Windows, that the support and repair costs will be onerous burdens, that the imposition of a single hardware and software suite is too imperialistic, and that the machine fails to protect children from accessing things like pornography.

Many of the criticisms are arguments making the good being the enemy of the perfect, without realizing the potential downsides of alternatives. While OLPC doesn’t run Windows, doing so prevents it from attack by the majority of malicious code on the internet. Windows would also fail to prevent objectionable material from showing up on educational computers at least as much as OLPC does. Windows based machines would be equally imperialistic in imposing a standard OS, but without the benefit of being open to revision at the endpoints like OLPC; although the OLPC would be a uniform techno-ecosystem, it is designed as a generative base to build and experiment upon. While no technology will be perfect and not require repair, standard laptops running Windows are not designed like OLPCs to withstand rugged use; there is no reason to believe that they will be more difficult to get fixed than any other machine and a strong argument by OLPC that they will be less likely to need repair.

The rest of the criticisms of OLPC fail to account for the generative ideal that it attempts to embody. By getting the laptops into the hands of children and letting them go, the project assumes that the benefits will come in unexpected ways as children play and learn and explore; the system is designed to foster the same trial and error that makes it possible for the network of PCs in the developed world to come up with new ways of enriching lives. Far from making the third world a dumping ground for useless machines, OLPC assumes that they will be able to create their own benefit in the same way as the rest of the world; it gives them a lever and believes they too will figure out how to move the world. Currently cell phones are leading to economic development and real benefits in the poorest places in the world; the deployment of generative machines able to spread communication and much more should generate greater returns for those with the least.

Perhaps OLPC will fail, but it seems more likely that established players opposing challenges to their businesses (like Microsoft and Intel) are more likely to be the cause than the inadequacy of the OLPC itself to perform as well as the "collective hallucination" that is the internet. Perhaps OLPC’s disruptive nature prevents it from being seen as a safe bet, but it is the reason why it is the best bet yet.

Steven Gebelin 13:04, 18 April 2008 (EDT)