The rhetoric of smartness

Abstract

The idea of ‘smart’ is pervasive in technological landscapes. There are smartphones, smartwatches, smart refrigerators, smart mattresses and even smart bottles. This descriptor for technology has an ambiguous sense of what ‘smart’ implies. Its ambiguity is imaginative, allowing various interpretations, projections, meanings, and logics of ‘smartness’ to emerge and propagate. We attempt to capture some of the many meanings of contemporary ‘smartness’, including what might be called ‘smart dumbness’ through the examination of ‘smart’ as an imaginary. Three prevalent logics are proposed: the logic of augmentation, the productivity logic, and the logic of anticipation, through analysis of communication materials, device capabilities, and user practices. Our analytical observations draw attention to the different meanings of ‘smartness,’ the technological imaginations it creates, and the need to develop a body of work that broadens our collective imagination about technology.